ou to read of my queer life
here in Paris. If my letters bore you, you will not have to read
them. I want only to show that I appreciate your help and your
interest in me. To know Josef is the greatest thing, save one, that
has come to my life. He gives me little slips of writing to pin up
in my room to learn by heart. The last one read:

"What is it that enables one to live through the dead calm which
succeeds a passionate desolation? Good work and hard work. The way
to live well is to work well."

Ever gratefully yours,
KATRINE DULANY.

Another letter came in the same mail, which Frank read with a distaste
for the writer of it, for the affair that made such a letter possible.
It was from another woman, but something in the fervent little soul
beyond the seas called to him, to the best in him, and he tore the other
note to pieces and wrote a line or two in answer which closed an affair
before it was well begun.

For two months he had carried a letter which he had written to Katrine
during the first week of his mother's illness. He took it from his
pocket and read it over now, wondering if it were wise to send it:

"I heard of your great sorrow sixty miles from a railroad in the
Canadian woods. I started that night to see if I could help you. To
speak truth, Katrine, I don't know why I started to come to you,
except that I could not stay away.

"In New York I met McDermott, who told me you had sailed to study
with Josef. This did not change my plans in the least. But there
came the question of that land on the other side of the river which
detained me for several days, and then my mother's dangerous
illness.

"I have been with her constantly since--the crisis is past, but she
is still too ill for me to leave her. I am coming to you just as
soon as I can. And I am going to ask you to forgive me, to take me
and make whatever you can out of my worthless self. Whatever of
good there is in me has come through you. You have given me belief
in purity and selflessness and hope of achievement.

"Don't remember me as I was; don't do that, Little One; only as I
hope to be; as I hope you will help me to be. I am coming for your
answer the first minute I can get away.

"FRANCIS RAVENEL."

There had been many reasons for not sending this letter: his mother's
illness; his sudden