air turned high
in a curly knot, she stood in the old rose-garden when he came.

He wore a light overcoat over his evening dress, and stood hatless by
the boxwood arch looking across at her.

"Katrine," he said, "little Katrine, I have come back to you."

His face was illumined as he spoke her name. The peculiar ability to
express more than he felt was always his, but at the instant he felt
more than he was able to express.

"I am glad," she answered, not moving toward him nor offering to shake
hands. It seemed enough that he was there.

"They have gone at last," he said; adding, piously: "Thank God!"

"You did not have a good time?" she asked.

"I did not."

"I am sorry," she said, baffling him by the serenity of her tone.

"There were two or three occasions which stand out with a peculiarly
horrible distinctness. One was the time we had an all-day picnic at
Bears' Den. Porter Brawley suggested it, and I hope he will suffer for
it in eternity. It rained."

Katrine laughed.

"And there was an evening when we had charades, for which nobody had the
least gift or training. It was the evening you were to come to us. Why
didn't you, Katrine?"

"I was not well," she answered. "But I shouldn't have come if I'd been
well, Mr. Ravenel."

She seemed to him so perfect, such an utterly desirable being, as she
sat with roses in her hand and the moonlight shining on her flower-like
face.

Neither noted the silence which fell between them, a silence which spoke
more than language could have done, for language had become, between
them, an unnecessary thing.

There was still no spoken word as they walked side by side along the
path which led to the house. At the turn into the wider way there was a
tall pine-tree, the boughs beginning high from the ground, the turf
beneath them covered with brown pine-needles. There was a bench here,
upon which they had often sat together. In the moonlight this place
under the tree was in a soft, warm glow. As they drew near it Frank
spoke in a voice scarcely above a whisper. "Sit here, just for a
minute?"

It seemed as though they were alone together in the world. In the
moonlit gloom under the pine they stood, near, nearer, and at length he
put his arm around her gently, not drawing her toward him, only letting
it lie around her waist, as though they had a right to be there, heart
to heart, in the stillness of the night. Standing thus, he felt her
tremble, noted her quickened brea