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Katherine Douglas King '' The invitation was accepted and other letters followed, in which she spoke of her concern for his health and her delight in seeing him so much at home among the crippled children she served.

It is difficult to say what Thompson expected would come of their relationship, which had begun so soon after his emotions had been stirred by Maggie Brien, but when Katie wrote on April 11, 1900, to tell him that she was to be married to the Rev. Godfrey Burr, the vicar of Rushall in Staffordshire, the news evidently helped to deepen his discouragement over the failure of his hopes for a new volume of verse.

In a letter to Meynell, which was written in June, less than a month before Katie's wedding, he was highly melodramatic in his despair and once again announced his intention of returning to the life of the streets: ``