hat part
of the grounds to the boat-landing, on one of his lightning-like trips
to foreign parts. He had just encountered Frank riding like the wind,
his face haggard and drawn, and at the sight of Katrine's distress he
drew conclusions, with rage and a dancing madness in his eye.

"If ye've hurt her, Frank Ravenel, if I find when I come back ye've hurt
her, you'll answer to me for it! God! _how_ you will answer to me!" he
cried.

* * * * *

There is this about life: that frequently when we think the worst has
happened it is but the forerunner of worse to come.

As Katrine lay tossed by misery and shame, Nora O'Grady, with her kilted
linsey-woolsey skirt turned up, her white kerchief loosened over her
bosom, and her brogans twinkling in her haste, came running along the
road, her face twitching with sorrow. Ever and anon in her speed she
dried her eyes on her apron and a moan escaped her.

"Poor heart!" she repeated. "Poor heart, she's enough to bear without
this coming to her the now!"

But pushing the branches aside, she spoke in simulated anger to
Katrine, a pretence which showed well the peculiar delicacy of her
class. It was not for the like of her, she reasoned, to know the truth
regarding Miss Katrine's relation with Mr. Ravenel; and yet she knew as
accurately as if the scene of the morning had taken place before her.
With clear, wise eyes she had dreaded such an ending the summer long.
Nothing, she reasoned, could further hurt Katrine's pride than to have
it known her love had been slighted, or to offer sympathy, no matter how
hiddenly. And so she feigned well an anger she was far from feeling, in
an intentional misunderstanding.

Looking down at the prostrate figure, she began, in a shrill voice:

"Honestly to God, Miss Katrine, ye'll hear another word of this! Crying
like a child in the middle of a lot of damp stickers because ye can't
have music as ye like! Just throw yourself round on this wet ground a
bit more an' mayhap He'll take away the voice He's given ye already!
Perhaps it's because ye cry for nothing that there's been something sent
ye to cry for!" And here her thought of suitable conduct was lost in
real grief.

"Ah, Miss Katrine! Miss Katrine! Your father," her voice broke and went
up in a wail, "your father's come home to ye--"

Katrine, who had arisen, stood with tear-stained face regarding her. "He
is--?" She could not go on with the question, but Nora