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Transcriber's Notes:
     1. Page scan source--Google Books
        https://books.google.com/books?id=5cgBAAAAQAAJ
        (Oxford University)



KISSING THE ROD.

A Novel.

BY EDMUND YATES,
AUTHOR OF "BROKEN TO HARNESS," "RUNNING THE GAUNTLET,"
"LAND AT LAST," ETC.



"The heart knoweth its own bitterness."



IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.

LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18 CATHERINE ST. STRAND.
1866.

[_All rights of translation and reproduction reserved_.]



LONDON:
ROBSON AND SON, GREAT NORTHERN PRINTING WORKS,
PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.



CONTENTS OF VOL. III.
CHAP.
       I. "IN BATTALLIONS."
      II. DELIBERATION.
     III. WINGED IN FLIGHT.
      IV. HUSBAND AND WIFE.
       V. FAILURE.
      VI. HESTER IN POSSESSION.
     VII. A SPLIT IN THE CAMP.
    VIII. THE PLEDGE REDEEMED.
      IX. SUCCESS.
       X. COMING HOME.






KISSING THE ROD.




CHAPTER I.
"IN BATTALIONS."


It was perhaps fortunate for Robert Streightley that the pressure of
an immediate necessity for exertion was put upon him at the same time
that he received his wife's letter. The blow was so frightful that it
might have completely crushed him, had he not been forced to rouse
himself from its first effect, to put the meaning of the terrible
communication aside for a time, while he attended to the stern duties
which were his, as the only representative of the dead man. The
subdued bustle, the ceaseless coming and going, the people to be seen,
the letters to be written, the innumerable demands upon his attention
in reference to his deceased father-in-law, to say nothing of the
exigencies of his own affairs, from which he had not an hour's
respite, controlled him in spite of himself, and by suspending
softened the intensity of the knowledge of the punishment that had
overtaken him.

The suspense and perplexity into which Katharine's unexplained absence
from home had thrown the household on the preceding day had prepared
them to expect that some important intelligence was contained in the
letter which had reached their master that morning; and the unhappy
man comprehended the necessity of making some communication on the
subject. He briefly informed Katharine's maid that she had left town
for the present; and on being asked whether the woman was to join her
mistress at Middlemeads, he said Mrs. Streightley was not there; that
she had better wait for orders, and in the mean time ask no more
questions. An injudicious answer; but Robert neither knew nor cared
what would have been the judicious course to pursue. He knew only that
his sin had found him out; that the chastisement had come; and that
the woman whom he had so loved and so wronged had left him for
ever--left him hating and despising him.

The hours of that dreadful day wore through somehow. Robert had been
engaged during many of them in making arrangements consequent upon Mr.
Guyon's death; he had been at Queen Anne Street, and at his office in
the City, transacting business of different but invariably unpleasant
kinds. He had seen several persons, but not any by whom the domestic
calamity which had fallen upon him was suspected. He had written to
his mother, informing her of Mr. Guyon's death, and requesting that
Ellen would not come to Portland Place for the present; but giving no
explanation of this request. All the day he had carried about with him
the dreadful knowledge of what had befallen him--had been oppressed by
its weight, darkened