e reins in their own hands, and work out their own
destinies, but where, since the beginning of the world, is the artist to
be found who can be comforted by common-sense while floundering in the
valley of discouragement?

This morning for Martin Beverley had begun badly, and breakfast, instead
of being a time of refreshment, had left him feeling still more jarred
and dreary. Mentally he laid the blame upon Katrine's shoulders. There
was no denying the fact that Katrine was getting upon his nerves. For
the first few years of their lives together all had gone well; he
himself had been too bruised, too sore, to take more than a passing
interest in life; and she had been but a young and malleable girl; now
at the end of eight years he was awake once more, while Katrine was a
woman of twenty-six, and, it was no use denying that the home atmosphere
was out of time. Katrine was a clever housekeeper, careful and
considerate of his comfort, she was also handsome, capable, and
affectionate, yet the bitter fact remained that the _tete-a-tete_ was
beginning to jar, and an unspoken friction to shadow the air.

Martin was grateful for the help which his sister had given him, he
tried persistently for self-control, yet in the recesses of his mind the
question was growing daily more insistent: "_How long could he endure
the present_ manage?"

An intolerable longing possessed him to break loose from the chains
which cramped his life, and to start afresh, free and untrammelled. For
the moment the very presence of his sister in the room seemed more than
he could bear. He turned on his heel, and walked quickly from the room.

CHAPTER TWO.

Katrine meantime had accomplished her duties, and given herself up to
the enjoyment of reading, and replying, to her Indian letter. The
temptation of beginning the reply could seldom be postponed, for
Dorothea's words brought with them a personal demand, to which it was
imperative to respond.

Dorothea was the one person in the whole world who could always be
relied upon to understand, and follow Katrine's mental flights. At
school she had been the staunchest of chums; through the first black
years of Martin's widowerhood her enthusiasm had kept her friend's
resolution at white heat, and when two years later she had met her fate
in the guise of a young officer, and had been spirited away to India,
her departure had been the sorest grief which Katrine had yet been
called upon to bear.