to her; his head had lain on her bosom one night when she had tried to
ease his pain by her small, cool hands. The place burned over her heart,
and she pressed her hand to her side as though to stanch a wound.

If there had been another reason for his conduct, she thought, any
reason save the one he gave! If a father had forbidden marriage between
them, or if he had feared the anger of his mother, her pride, at least,
would not have suffered. But he had made it clear, "damnably clear," as
he has stated it, that the only obstacle to his marrying her was his own
will.

But he had suffered, too. She had seen him white and haggard with
longing for her, and she knew pretence too well to doubt that thus far
she was the supreme attraction in his life. The thing that hung black
over all was the unchangeableness of the cause of her trouble. She could
never be anything but Katrine Dulany; he had decided that she was not
worthy to become Katrine Ravenel. Wherein, then, did these Ravenels
excel? Her rebellious Irish heart put questions for her clear head to
answer. Were they a generous, high-minded, clear-souled people?
Folk-tales, passed by word of mouth, of the ill doings of Francis sixth,
as well as Francis fifth of the name, told her they were not. Certain
dusky faces with the Ravenel mouth and chin had spoken to her of a moral
code before which her clean soul stood abashed. Were they more
intelligent, more dignified, more refined? The narrow-mindedness of them
answered these questionings in the negative. Were they; and here that
self-belief, which seems placed like a shell to protect all genius,
entered its own, demanding; were they of the specially gifted, as she
knew herself to be?

But through the turmoil of heated thought one idea became fixed,
however. She must leave Carolina and work; determinedly, doggedly; work
to save her reason. Unformulated plans were taking shape in her mind
even while she sobbed forth her grief. If she could but study, she
thought!

"There must"--and here she spoke aloud, her hands clinched in the
pine-needles--"must, _must_ be found some way to do it!"

And by some curious mental twist, as she made the resolution, there came
back to her the words of some old reading:

_"No great artistic success ever came to any woman, that had not its
root in a dead love."_

As she lay face downward, her body convulsed with weeping, it was
ordered that Dermott McDermott should take a short cut through t