, who in happier days knew my
father. Will you not come and let me introduce you to him?"

The letter was signed, "Your loving Katherine," and to Browne this
seemed to be the pith and essence of its contents. How different it
was from the note he had received that morning! They were as different
as light and darkness, as black and white, as any simile that could be
employed. In one she had declared that it was impossible for her ever
to become his wife, and in the other she signed herself, "Your loving
Katherine." Of course he would go that evening, not because the old
man had been acquainted with her father, for he would have gone just as
willingly if he had had a bowing acquaintance with her grandmother.
All he wanted was the opportunity of seeing Katherine, of being in the
same house and room with her, of watching the woman he loved, and who
had promised to be his wife.

Accordingly, that evening after dinner, he hailed a cab and drove to
the Rue Jacquarie. As he passed along the crowded thoroughfares, he
could not help contrasting the different occasions on which he had
visited that street. The first time had been on the night of his
arrival in Paris, when he had gone there in order to locate the house;
the next was that on which he had repaired there in response to the
note from Madame Bernstein; then, again, on the morning of that happy
day they had spent together at Fontainebleau; while the last was after
that miserable letter he had received from Katherine, in which she bade
him give up the idea that she could ever become his wife.

On this occasion it was indeed a happy young man who jumped out of the
vehicle and nodded to the _concierge_ as he passed her and ran up the
stairs. When he knocked at the door of Madame's sitting-room, a voice
from within told him to enter. He did so, to find Katherine, Madame,
and an old gentleman, whom he had never seen before, seated there.
Katherine hastened forward to greet him. If he had not already been
rewarded for all the anxiety and pain he had experienced during the
last few days, and for the promise he had given that morning, the look
upon her face now would have fully compensated him.

"I thought you would come," she said; and then, dropping her voice a
little, she added, "I have been watching the hands of the clock, and
waiting for you."

But, even if Katherine were so kind in her welcome to him, she was not
destined to have the whole ceremony in her han