es to meet his own, with the clear, unafraid look in them
of the olden times.

"When I first saw you here, the night I sang, I became afraid you were a
man whom I had simply overestimated in the past because of my youth. I
have avoided you ever since for fear I should find it to be true. I am
afraid you are a man who is simply 'not worth while.'" The words were
spoken softly, even with a certain odd tenderness, but they struck
Francis Ravenel like a blow in the face, and he set his lips, as a man
does in physical suffering.

"I think it is just," he said, at length. "I think that describes me as
I am: a man who is not worth while. Only, you see, Katrine, I was not
prepared to hear the truth from you." He grew white as he spoke. "In all
of your letters you spoke so divinely of that old-time love."

For an instant she regarded him with startled attention, her eyebrows
drawn together, both hands brought suddenly to her throat.

"My letters," she repeated, "my letters!" And then, her quick intuition
having told her all, "How could you do it? Oh, how could you do it?" she
cried, the tears in her eyes and the quick sobs choking her speech. "It
was you who sent me abroad to study! It is you to whom I am indebted
for all: Josef, the Countess, my voice! Ah, you let a girl write her
heart out to you, to flatter your--Oh, forgive me!" choking with the
sobs which had become continuous, "forgive me!" she cried, as she laid
her head on her arms by the corner of the chimney. "Forgive me!" she
repeated. "I said once (you will remember, I wrote it, too) that I would
try never to criticise you by word or thought. I want to be true to
that, even _now_. Only," she said, pressing her hand over her heart, "I
hurt so! The pain makes me say things I would rather not say. Oh, I
wonder if another man in all the world ever hurt a woman's pride as you
have hurt mine!"

"Katrine," Frank said, "God knows I never intended to tell you! There
was always the thought in my mind that you should never know, but you
hurt me so, I forgot. Oh, Katrine, forgive me!"

"I _am_ grateful," she interrupted, in her hurried, generous way,
"grateful for the kind thought for me; but I am angry, too, so angry
that I don't dare trust myself," she smiled through her tears, the
funny, heart-breaking smile. She gathered up her music. "Good-bye," she
said, "I shall try to go away in the morning." And with no offer of
handshaking she passed him, and he heard her softly