in distress. "Don't! I--I never know what to do
when people cry. Please!" Her voice altered suddenly. "Mother, you wait
here a minute! You just wait here!"

Kate heard her leave the room, and then stooped to kiss her grandson
good-by.

As she knelt there, tears raining fast on the tiny, unresponsive face in
the coffin, she heard a step behind her. Thinking it was Jemima again,
she did not look around.

It was some moments later that a memory came to her, so clear as to be
almost a vision; the memory of her dream in Frankfort--a man standing
near, with bent shoulders and gray hair, but eyes as blue as a child's,
as tender as a woman's, gazing down at her, smiling down....

Behind her sounded a slight cough.

She lifted her head, suddenly trembling. "Who--who is there?" she
whispered.

A voice answered, very low--"Kate!--Kate!"

Without another word, without a glance to make sure, she rose and went
blindly into the arms that were ready for her.

It was like coming home.

AFTERWORD

The Madam made one final appearance at Storm, no longer as Mrs. Kildare
but as Mrs. Benoix, remaining only long enough to put affairs in order
for resigning her stewardship of the estate.

She had been married in the mountains to Dr. Benoix, over-ruling all his
protests with a quiet, "Do you think I am going to run the risk of
losing you again?"

And indeed his protests were not very heartfelt. He was unaware until
too late of the clause in Basil Kildare's will by which Kate's
re-marriage would lose Storm to herself and her children. His chief
objection was on the score of his health, and to it Kate had replied
simply, "That in itself would be a reason for our marriage, if there
were no other. Oh, Jacques, if you could know how I _love_ to be
needed!"

He made his last weak protest. "But I cannot bear to think of you
wasting your loveliness, your charm, here among these uncouth people,
you who should shine in courts and palaces!"

She laughed softly. "I never have shone in any courts or palaces, goose!
As for what you call my 'loveliness and charm'--they have been most
valuable assets, I assure you, in dealing with my fellow-men." Her eyes
danced with the daring that had made Kate Leigh's bellehood remembered
beyond its time. "Why should beauty be wasted here more than elsewhere?
There's less of it, and your mountaineers have eyes--though not very
sound ones, poor dears!"

She went down to Storm alone, partly becaus