trine's voice which he heard in the broken talk, looking into the
distant sky at the two great towers of Notre Dame.

It was not far to the De Nemours' house. Although very late, it would
doubtless be filled with friends congratulating Katrine, and under the
circumstances, he reasoned, there could seem no precipitancy in calling
immediately to offer congratulations.

He found the house a blaze of light, with servants going back and forth
with arms full of flowers. In front there were many carriages and
fiacres. By the entrance arch were several newspaper men, one of whom
spoke Frank's name as he passed. Everywhere there was an air of bustle
and disorder. On the second floor he saw lights being carried from one
room to another, as though hurried preparations were being made.

Giving his card to the French servant, who had ushered him with an
important and excited manner into a small reception-room, he waited. His
heart throbbed like a school-boy's with his first love. In a minute he
would see her, would hold her hand. In his pocket he carried a letter,
one of Katrine's many letters, to "The Dear Unknown."

"I have not forgotten this old love," she had written, "I shall never
forget. I never close my eyes without thinking of him nor without a
prayer for him upon my lips."

Suddenly there came a laugh, a jolly, musical sound of real mirth, and
he heard Dermott's voice dominating and directing on the upper floor.
Immediately after there came a silence, and then, from the turn in the
stairs, he heard the same voice, with a touch of insolence, speaking to
the servant to whom he had given the card:

"Say to Mr. Ravenel that Mademoiselle Dulany regrets that it is
impossible for her to see him." And then, with a dramatic note, "Tell
him," the Irishman added, "she leaves within an hour to sing before the
Queen."

XXII

FRANK AND KATRINE MEET AT THE VAN RENSSELAER'S

In the three months which followed Katrine's great success, Frank heard
of her constantly, always with a curious self-belittling and a reviewing
of his own conduct, fine in its self-depreciation. He had betrayed the
great unspoken trust of the finest human being he had ever known, and
afterward dallied, for fear of rebuff to his vanity, from squaring the
account as well as he could by giving her a chance to refuse him openly.
He felt that he could never again be to her what he had been. Three
years of such work as she had done would change her ideals