ices, she sat in the dark of the carriage with the paper Barney had
given her clutched in her hand, with neither consideration of the coming
interview nor formulated plans. In a vague way she knew that people
stared after her, as she went through the corridor of the great
building, the hood of her storm-cloak thrown back. Unminding, she rapped
at McDermott's private door. She had no misgiving about his being there.
She knew in some way, before she left her apartment, that he would be
there when she arrived.

"Come in!" he called, curtly.

She entered to find him alone, standing by the window looking
absent-mindedly over the snowy chimney-tops, as though projecting a
holiday.

"By all the saints at once!" he cried, gayly, at sight of her. "Here
have I been ruminating on the sins of the fathers; on the triumphant
fifth act, with vice punished and virtue rewarded at the fall of the
curtain, when you enter!" And here her silence and pallor and accusing
eyes stopped his talking. "What is it, Katrine?" he demanded.

"Did you bring this trouble to Mr. Ravenel?" she asked, her eyes filled
with a dangerous light which in a second was matched by the blaze in
his.

"Do you mean that ye think it was I who struck a man in the back in the
way this thing was done?" he cried, bringing his closed fist down on the
newspaper, which lay on the desk before him, in a splendid kind of
anger. "How little you know me, after all!" he said, reproach in his
voice. "How little ye know me! I've had neither art or part in it, nor
suspicion of it until to-day. You'll be wanting proof of it!" he went
on, a bit of scorn in his voice. "If so, mayhap the common-sense of the
situation will appeal to you, though I don't know." He was angry, and
she felt the brunt of it in these words. "Look you!" he continued. "Why
should I be ruining an estate that I'm trying to get possession of? It
would be a fool's part to play."

"Forgive me, McDermott!" she cried. "Oh, forgive me! I want no further
proof. Your face is enough for me. But I'm beside myself with grief."

"I suppose," he continued, "that you reasoned I was capable of this
because of that affair about the land on the other side of the river?"

"I did think of it," Katrine admitted. "Forgive me for it, Dermott, but
I did think of it!"

"Do you know for whom I bought that land, Katrine Dulany? For your
father--no less. It was got with the hope of helping him. It stands in
his name in the State rec