ieties of life, all the sacred assumptions and self-surrenders at the
root of it, were shaken, outraged by the girl's tone.

'Do you ever remember,' she said, looking up, while her voice trembled,
'what papa wished when he was dying?'

It was her last argument. To Rose she had very seldom used it in so many
words. Probably, it seemed to her too strong, too sacred, to be often
handled.

But Rose sprang up, and pacing the little work-room with her
white wrists locked behind her, she met that argument with all the
concentrated passion which her youth had for years been storing up
against it. Catherine sat presently overwhelmed, bewildered. This
language of a proud and tameless individuality, this modern gospel of
the divine right of self-development--her soul loathed it! And yet,
since that night in Marrisdale, there had been a new yearning in her to
understand.

Suddenly, however, Rose stopped, lost her thread. Two figures were
crossing the lawn, and their shadows were thrown far beyond them by the
fast disappearing sun.

She threw herself down on her chair again with an abrupt--'Do you see
they have come back? We must go and dress.'

And as she spoke she was conscious of a new sensation altogether--the
sensation of the wild creature lassoed on the prairie, of the bird
exchanging in an instant its glorious freedom of flight for the pitiless
meshes of the net. It was stifling--her whole nature seemed to fight
with it.

Catherine rose and began to put away the books they had been covering.
She had said almost nothing in answer to Rose's tirade. When she was
ready she came and stood beside her sister a moment, her lips trembling.
At last she stooped and kissed the girl--the kiss of deep, suppressed
feeling--and went away. Rose made no response.

Unmusical as she was, Catherine pined for her sister's music
that evening. Robert was busy in his study, and the hours seemed
interminable. After a little difficult talk Langham subsided into a book
and a corner. But the only words of which he was conscious for long were
the words of an inner dialogue. 'I promised to play for her.--Go and
offer then!--Madness! let me keep away from her. If she asks me, of
course I will go.--She is much too proud, and already she thinks me
guilty of a rudeness.'

Then, with a shrug, he would fall to his book again, abominably
conscious, however, all the while of the white figure between the lamp
and the open window, and of the delicate hea