towards the entrance. Kate saw Walcott grow pale as he read the missive,
then, with a muttered curse, he started for the door, followed by the
other.

Quickly descending to the next landing, where there was an alcove window
looking out upon the driveway, Kate could see a closed carriage standing
before the entrance, and Walcott, holding the door partially open,
talking with some one inside. The colloquy was brief, and, as Walcott
stepped back from the carriage, the smaller man, who had been standing
at a little distance, sprang in hastily. As he swung the door open for
an instant Kate had a glimpse of a woman on the rear seat, dressed in
black and heavily veiled. As the man closed the door Walcott stepped to
the window for a word or two, then turned towards the house, and the
carriage rolled rapidly down the driveway. Kate slowly ascended the
stairs, listening for Walcott, who entered the house, but, instead of
coming upstairs, passed through the lower hall, going directly to a
private room of Mr. Underwood's in which he received any who happened to
call at the house on business.

Kate went to her room, her pulse beating quickly. She felt intuitively
that something was wrong; that here was revealed a phase of Walcott's
personality which she in her innocence had not considered, had not even
suspected. She knew that her father believed him to be a moral man, and
hitherto she had regarded the lack of affinity between herself and him
as due to a sort of mental disparity--a lack of affiliation in thought
and taste. Now the conviction flashed upon her that the disparity was a
moral one. She recalled the sense of loathing with which she
instinctively shrank from his touch; she understood it now. And within
two hours she was to have married this man! Never!

Passing a large mirror, she paused and looked at the reflection there.
Was her soul, its purity and beauty symbolized by her very dress, to be
united to that other soul in its grossness and deformity? Her cheek
blanched with horror at the thought. No! that fair body should perish
first, rather than soul or body ever be contaminated by his touch!

Her decision was taken from that moment, and it was irrevocable.
Nothing--not even her father's love or anger, his wishes or his
commands--could turn her now, for, as he himself boasted, his own blood
flowed within her veins.

Swiftly she disrobed, tearing the veil in her haste and throwing the
shimmering white garments to one