peak to each other on the
subject of Francis Ravenel until the night of the Countess' death. But
it was doubtless the bond in suffering, no less than her great love,
which made the Countess write to Dermott, the first day of her
convalescence, the letter which is set below:

"I am nearing the end, my dear Irish cousin, and would set the
house in order before I go. What little I have (it is almost
nothing, for the house goes back to the estate at my death and my
income has never been large) I want to give to Katrine Dulany. I
want her to have, in the old phrase, everything of which I die
possessed. And of course I desire you to be the executor. Will you
arrange the necessary papers and bring them with you when you come
to hear her sing? And I'm hoping I may be still here to greet you
and thank you once more for a lifetime of loyalty and devotion."

Sitting in his New York office, Dermott read the lines with a face
saddened and gray. But the smile, so peculiarly his own, filled with
cynicism and humor, came to his lips at its close.

"Talk of justice!" he said. "Why, poetry can't touch this! Things always
square themselves in the long run, though we may not live to see them do
it, but this is one of the times when poetic justice itself got on the
job."

Dermott answered this letter of Madame de Nemours in person as soon as
business made it possible. Katrine, who understood from the Countess the
significance of his coming, awaited him in the reception-room on the
second floor. The curtains were drawn; a fitful fire made the figures in
the tapestry advance and retreat; the candles in silver sconces lit up a
misty Greuze over the mantel-shelf. A great bowl of white roses filled
the room with fragrance, and Dermott thought, as he bent over Katrine's
hand, that it was all but an exquisite setting for the girl herself.

Nearly a year had passed since their last meeting, and naturally Dermott
expected some change in her. But Katrine was entirely unprepared for the
change in Dermott. She had known but the one side of him in Carolina. On
his previous visits to Paris, while grateful for his kindness, she was
preoccupied and sad. And so, of the serious-eyed man with the beautiful
pallor and grave courtesy, she had scant remembrance.

On the instant of his coming, however, she recollected memories of the
old days; recalled that underneath his bright and stagelike behavior
there had e