d, calmly; "I understand it from your view, as it looks
to you."

"But is not that the only view?"

She did not speak at once, and when she did it was with a peculiar
deliberation.

"The clouds will lift one day; what then?"

Darrell's voice trembled with emotion as he replied, "We cannot trust to
that, for neither you nor I know what the light will reveal."

She remained silent, and Darrell, after a pause, continued: "Don't make
it harder for me, Kathie; there is but one course for us to follow in
honor to ourselves or to each other."

They sat in silence for a few moments; then both rose simultaneously to
return to the house, and as they did so Darrell was conscious of a new
bearing in Kate's manner,--an added dignity and womanliness. As they
faced one another Darrell took both her hands in his, saying,--

"What is it to be, Kathie? Can we return to the old friendship?"

She stood for a moment with averted face, watching the stars brightening
one by one in the evening sky.

"No," she said, presently, "we can never return to that now; it would
seem too bare, too meagre. There will always be something deeper and
sweeter than mere friendship between us,--unless you fail me, and I know
you will not."

"And do you forgive me?" he asked.

She turned then, looking him full in the eyes, and her own seemed to
have caught the radiance of the stars themselves, as she answered,
simply,--

"No, John Darrell, for there is nothing to forgive."

_Chapter XVII_

"SHE KNOWS HER FATHER'S WILL IS LAW"

Though the succeeding days and weeks dragged wearily for Darrell, he
applied himself anew to work and study, and only the lurking shadows
within his eyes, the deepening lines on his face, the fast multiplying
gleams of silver in his dark hair, gave evidence of his suffering.

And if to Kate the summer seemed suddenly to have lost its glory and
music, if she found the round of social pleasures on which she had just
entered grown strangely insipid, if it sometimes seemed to her that she
had quaffed all the richness and sweetness of life on that wondrous
first night till only the dregs remained, she gave no sign. With her
sunny smile and lightsome ways she reigned supreme, both in society and
in the home, and none but her aunt and Darrell missed the old-time
rippling laughter or noted the deepening wistfulness and seriousness of
the fair young face.

Her father watched her with growing pride, and with a visible