done to Madame de Nemours," he answered.

"It will mean that Mr. Ravenel has no right either to his home or his
name?"

The pleading and protest in her voice did not escape Dermott as he
answered:

"It will mean just that!"

"And nothing can move you from your purpose?"

"Nothing that I can now think of," he answered, adding with some
vehemence: "Katrine Dulany, is it that you know me so little? My cousin
suffered much. She was deserted by a scoundrel while little more than a
child. These things must be paid for. But if you think I'd do a crooked
thing in business to settle a grudge or belittle a rival, you don't know
me at all. There's none, not Ravenel himself, who will demand everything
proven beyond doubt sooner than I. I'll take every point I can honestly,
but the man who is not absolutely honest in business is a fool. Until he
learns to be honest from the higher reason, he should be honest from
selfishness. It pays. It's capital."

"Then you believe the cause just?"

"I believe that the present Ravenel's father married in America knowing
that he had a living wife and child in France."

Katrine stood, hand-clasped, looking straight into Dermott's eyes. But
what she saw was an old garden in Carolina, wind-blown pines, the
scarlet creepers around an old bench, and a man with blanched face and
restless eyes; what she heard, underneath Dermott's voice, were words
from the past:

_"I might lie to you, but the thing that separates us is family pride,
family pride. I am going away to-day, going because I do not dare to
stay!"_

"Nothing else in life could hurt Mr. Ravenel as this thing will if
proven," she said, at length.

"Naturally not," McDermott answered, succinctly; "but it is not proven
yet," he added, in an impartial tone, adding, "I have not been able to
find the witness I need."

Was it Katrine's imagination that made her think the door moved suddenly
as by human agency? Had some of the servants been listening? She paused
in her talk, and, looking into the hall, saw Quantrelle the Red pass
quickly up the stairs with his daily flower for Madame de Nemours.

"And, believing that Ravenel did not belong to Mr. Ravenel," she
continued, "you encouraged him to build the railroad?"

"I neither encouraged nor discouraged that enterprise," Dermott
answered. "Fate steered, and did it well."

"And Mrs. Ravenel?" The name, as she spoke it, was a remonstrance.

"Mademoiselle Dulany," Dermott answered, "in