ween them. "You were kind to
me then, Katrine."

She looked at him steadily, as a child might have done, with no
shrinking in her glance, with neither anger nor shame. "And you?" she
asked, wistfully. "Were you very kind to me?"

"I was not. God!" he said, "if you could only know how I have suffered
for the way I acted! To feel such shame as I have felt! Oh," he cried,
"nobody on earth could make me talk this way but you! There was always
between us a curious understanding, wasn't there, Katrine, even apart
from the other?" He finished vaguely.

"I knew you would suffer. I was sorry for that," she answered, gravely.

"Were you, truly? Were you big enough for that?"

"Well," and the sad smile with which the Irish so often speak of
personal grief came to her lips, "you see, I loved you. And when one
loves one wishes for happiness for the one beloved, does one not? Yes,"
she said, "I was honestly sorry to think that you would have even a
regret. I would have taken all the sorrow if I could."

"You loved me then?" His head was gone. He remembered only the sweetness
of her presence and the nearness of her. "You did love me then,
Katrine?"

She rose suddenly as though to leave him.

"Don't go," he said, reaching his hand toward her with pleading in his
tone.

She reseated herself, her face exquisitely pale. "Ah," she said, "you
know I loved you! I was so young, and it was all so terrible to me!
Please God, you may never suffer as I did! I have lain awake night after
night praying to die, or waking with dread at the knowledge that as soon
as consciousness came the horrible pain would return with it, and there
came the resentment to the great God for my birth, as though that could
make any real difference. But it was good for me. The very best thing in
all the world. Nothing else could ever have taught me as it did."

"Katrine!" he cried, and, the doctor's orders forgotten, he sat up and
leaned toward her "believe me, I have waited all these years to see you,
to talk with you! But unless two people are entirely honest, I knew the
thing would be impossible. I thought you would forgive me, would
understand as you grew older!"

"I understood then," she interrupted. "My whole life had trained me to
understand. I was not in the least critical of you. I am not now. You
followed your birth and your training. You had been taught no
self-control. Women had spoiled you. You had never had to consider
others. I want to be per