ar, dear room, dear old books,
dear old scores! Good-bye, Dear Unknown!

It is the last time I can write you of my hopes to be great.
To-morrow you will know what I have done. But whether I go to
success or failure, I kiss you with my heart full of love and
gratitude, and so-good-bye!

KATRINE.

* * * * *

"There is Josef now; look, Mrs. Ravenel!" Mrs. Lennox cried, pointing to
a man who had just entered the stage box. "The man with the iron-gray
hair. And the eyes! Did you ever see such eyes? And who is that with
him? Great Heavens," she exclaimed, "it is that pervasive Irishman who
was down in North Carolina, Dermott McDermott!"

Josef, pale as a statue, had taken a place in the shadow of the box,
back from the reach of opera-glasses. His hands trembled, and at times
his lips twitched backward, as one who has lost control through too long
a strain.

"Do look out for him," Katrine had said to Dermott, the night before,
between tears and a smile. "I can get through it all right, but I am
fearful it may kill Josef. He takes me very seriously, you know."

A heavy knocking came. The leader took his place. The overture began,
and when the curtain rose Campanali received the genuine ovation which
was his due. At the conclusion of that great duet, "Be Mine the
Delight," there was the vision of Marguerite at the spinning-wheel, and,
after three years, Francis Ravenel saw Katrine, but in a blurred vision
with fold upon fold of gauze between them. Finally the soldiers and
maidens disappeared, and there came an expectant hush. One heard _now_!
The pause was marked, intentional, before there came toward the
footlights, in their most relentless glare, a girl with gladness and joy
in her very walk. Neither a heavy German peasant girl nor a French
soubrette. No dreary, timid, _maedchen_, but a glad young soul conscious
of nothing save joy, with the beauty in her face of youth and power as
she looked at the gay throng of the fair. Then, with the gaze of the
entire house upon her, her eyes encountered those of Faust. There was no
start of surprise, but, as though drawn to him by a law beyond control,
her eyes rested in his, and with no gesture, without a note sung, with
nothing but a change in expression, one understood great love had come
to her, the first love of a woman, which is never lived over nor
forgotten.

And Francis Ravenel, sitting back of the others in