mely uncomfortable,"
he added, laughing.

VIII

FRANK YIELDS TO TEMPTATION

During the time of the house-party at Ravenel, Katrine gave vent to the
natural rebellion against her position but once. Dermott was away on
some business in New York; the daily letter from Dr. Johnston concerning
her father's condition had not arrived; and she had seen the gay people
from Ravenel coach past her as she sat alone on the Chestnut Ridge.

For nearly a week she had been sleeping badly, awakening every hour or
two through the night with something--something that could not be put
aside--pressing upon her soul.

Huddled in a sad little heap, in her white gown by the side of the bed,
one unbearable night she stretched her arms along the coverlet, sobbing
out to the everlasting silence the questionings as to what she had done
to be so neglected and set apart.

"What has been in my life but shame--shame which was not mine?" she
cried, as the horror of life with her drunken father came back to her.
"Why are some given everything," she demanded, "and I nothing? Where is
God's justice? What have I done; oh, what have I done?"

Out in the wooded silence a bird began to sing a mournful melody. Of the
greatness of night he sang, and dead morns, and dropping stars; of dear
forgotten things and loves that might have been, that may not be; of
passion and unfulfilled desires, and through the pines the song entered
her heart like a response. She listened, not as a girl listening to a
bird, but as one artist listens to another with a rapture of
appreciation. And the music comforted her. And later, in the midst of
great sorrow, she saw intended significance in the occurrence.

"It was an answer," she said, "to remind me that there will always be
that solace. Give me, oh God," she prayed, "power to make of all my
sorrow music for the world!"

The day following her midnight protest she heard from Nora and old Caesar
that the guests at Ravenel had gone; heard as well that "old Miss and
Marse Frank were goin' shortly"; heard it with a stirring at her heart
of physical pain to which she had grown used.

On the evening of this day, a warm June evening, she expected him to
come, and dressed as though there were an engagement between them to
spend the evening together. In a thin white gown, low in the neck, with
a kerchief of filmy lace knotted in front, sleeves that fell away at the
elbow, with faint, pink roses at her breast, her black h