m him. Money was spent for me like water. The doctor
told me he had orders to spare nothing. Ay, there's not another man in
the world who would do for a stranger what Mr. Ravenel tried to do for
me. And sometimes he'd write drolly, you know his way, that he'd seen ye
somewhere, riding, mayhap, or in the garden, or had heard a note of your
music as he rode by; and the home feeling would come back to me, and I'd
take heart again."

XI

KATRINE IS LEFT ALONE

In the ten days before her father's death nothing seemed spared Katrine.
The hopeless life of the man was recounted to her hour by hour,
interspersed with the rereadings of Frank's letters, and, most of all,
with remorse at the desolate place he had prepared for her when he had
gone.

"But ye'll have a friend in Mr. Ravenel," he told her, earnestly. "One
who will help you, Katrine, and ye need have no fear to take his help.
He is one who has a high thought for women and would never betray a
trust. It's a great comfort to me to know ye've him, Katrine."

On the day before the end his grief was bitter to hear.

"My little wee lassie," he sobbed, "I'm leaving ye alone with nothing;
none to shield you, none to care, but just one friend. I'm going out,
and it's good I'm going. I would always have held you back, always have
been a drag to your name--for ye'll make a name! It's in you, as it was
in her." He stopped speaking, but after a little space began, with a
crooning, the glorious "Ah, Patria Mia," and it seemed to Katrine as
though her heart would stop beating in her sorrow, for she knew it was
her unknown mother of whom he thought.

"Ah," he whispered, at length, wiping his brow, "the music's gone from
me. In the whole matter with your mother, Katrine, I was at fault. I was
jealous of her gift, of the love she had for it, and made her life
miserable by my demandings." He placed his hand tenderly on her head as
he spoke. "Katrine," he said, solemnly, "with those we love it's never
enough to forgive and forget. One must forgive and try to _understand_.
To forget and forgive. Ah, Katrine, time helps us there! It does almost
all of the work, so it's little credit we need take either for the
forgiving or forgetting. But to try to understand! When those we love
have hurt us or injured us, to study why it was done: what inherited
weakness in them, what fault of their environment brought it about, to
study to understand, that's the real Christianity."

In th