"But, Katrine," he cried, "look at me, Katrine! Nothing has been settled between us. I have asked you to marry me. You say you will not. You tell me you still care some little for me. It's a foolish situation. I was a cad, an ignorant and colossally selfish cad, but I am humbled and oh, I want you so!"

There was nothing but kindness and affection in her face as she stood with appealing eyes looking up at him.

"Do you want me to tell you what I believe to be the truth?"

"Yes; but, Katrine, don't make it hurt too much," he said.

"I think," she spoke the words softly, "if I had gone out of your life, had had no voice, had not succeeded, if the world had not spoken my name to you, you would have forgotten me in a year. I believe it is not Katrine Dulany, the daughter of your Irish overseer, whom you love, but La Dulany, who happens to have a gift, the adopted daughter of the Countess de Nemours, the woman whom you have heard the Duc de Launay wishes to marry!"

"Oh, Katrine!"

"I don't want to hurt you! indeed, _indeed_ I don't," she repeated. "I wanted you to know exactly what I think. Ah," she cried, "be fair! Do you blame me?"

"No," he answered. "I blame you for nothing; but it is not true! I love the soul of you, Katrine. And there has been between us love, love stronger than ourselves or our foolish prejudices. I believe that neither of us can forget, that something stronger than your will or mine draws us together. I will not accept your refusal. And you will not forget me! I mean to see to it that you shall not."

They returned to the house, through the incoming sea fog, in silence. At the foot of the side-stair they shook hands and said "good-bye" softly.

He had not expected to see her again in the evening. But here he failed to understand that the excitement under which she was laboring made either solitude or inaction unendurable. She was among the first to come down to dinner, and never, he reviewed the entire past before he came to the conclusion, had he seen her more beautiful. She wore pink, modish in the extreme, with many jewels--he recalled that he had never before seen her wear jewels--and she seemed in sky-sc.r.a.ping spirits, her eyes alight with fire and vivacity; and at the table he could hear the droll tones of her voice before the laughter came; and altogether she went far toward driving him daft by an apparent gayety at parting with him forever.

Immediately after the ladies left the table Dermott touched Frank lightly on the arm. "Could I have a few words with you in the gun-room?"

he asked. "It's the place where we shall be the least likely to be interrupted."

Ravenel followed him, after a nod of acquiescence, and stood on one side of a great chimney, which was filled with glowing logs, waiting for the Irishman to speak. He was entirely unprepared, however, for the consideration, even the impersonal kindness in Dermott's voice as he said, "I'm afraid I'm letting you in for a pretty bad time, Ravenel."

Frank bowed. Even McDermott was forced to admire his serene manner.

"Miss Dulany told me last night of her obligation to you."

Frank waited with no change of expression for Dermott to proceed.

"She said she desired her money obligation to be paid immediately."

"It is an affair of small moment," Frank answered.

"You know, perhaps, that my cousin, Madame de Nemours, left her property to Miss Dulany?"

"I heard of it at the time," Frank returned.

"And named me as executor," Dermott explained.

"A fact which escaped me," Ravenel answered, suavely.

"It has taken some time to settle the estate," Dermott continued, "because of a certain claim which, if proven, makes the estate a very valuable one. This claim nearly concerns you."

"Go on," Frank said, briefly, discourteously as well.

"I do not know," Dermott continued, "whether you are aware or not that your father made an earlier marriage than the one with your mother."

An ominous chill pa.s.sed over Frank, though he answered, bravely, "I was not."

"When he was living at Tours he married a girl, an Irish girl, who ran away from a convent to become his wife. She was but sixteen at the time.

Her name was Patricia McDermott, my cousin, afterward the Countess de Nemours."

Frank continued to listen, but, although his eyes held keen apprehension and his face was white, he showed a fine courage.

"My uncle, her father, was an ardent Roman Catholic," Dermott explained, "a gloomy, overfed, and melancholy man who never forgave his daughter.

In a short time your father seemed to have"--Dermott coughed--"tired of the affair," he explained, lightly, "and, his studies being finished, he left his wife and child and returned to America. I do not desire to dwell on the misery of my cousin and her child. She was cared for by some poor folks; my uncle gave her a death-bed forgiveness; the child died, and in process of time she married the Count de Nemours. After the death of her second husband, she gave me full charge of her affairs, and among her papers I found doc.u.ments relating to this early marriage. The year before your father's death I met him, quite by accident, in New York. The name was familiar to me. I asked questions, found he was married and had a son, yourself.

"Mr. Ravenel," Dermott changed his tone of recital to a more intimate one, "to speak truth, the matter is inexplicable to me. Your father was a brilliant man; a man of the world who, if he had no religious scruples on the subject of bigamy, must have had respect for law. Why," Dermott rose from the table by which he had been sitting, and stood directly facing Frank--"why he should have made a second marriage, with a wife and child living in France, is beyond explanation."

Frank drew back, his face colorless, his lips drawn, and, as the horrid import of the news became clear, "Ah, G.o.d!" he whispered; and then, with memory of his father uppermost, "It's a d.a.m.ned lie!" he cried.

"It may be," Dermott returned, calmly. "Most things are open to that interpretation. I'm afraid, however, you will have difficulty in proving it so. I have had the certificates of the marriage and of the birth of the child for a long time, but international law requires much. I have living witnesses. In Carolina, in looking up the matter," he spoke the word vaguely, "I failed to find anything which would disprove the points I have just placed before you. I was awaiting some letters from France before explaining the case to you, when Katrine demanded that her debt to you be paid immediately. There are many reasons why I do not wish to pay that debt now, reasons which we, as men, can understand. She might not comprehend them, and she certainly would not give the idea a straw's weight if she did, having once made up her mind. Now I'm going to tell her that I've paid her debt, Mr. Ravenel. It will comfort her. But with the matter which I have revealed to you still a little unsettled, and the markets in the state they are in, I cannot do my duty as executor and fulfil her desires immediately. After all, it is a small amount, and if my personal check--" He waited, and Ravenel spoke.

"Mr. McDermott, Miss Dulany's indebtedness to me is too slight to consider. About this other terrible business, I shall search my father's papers! It is necessary that I do everything I can to protect my mother's name as well as my own."

"That's reason," Dermott agreed.

"As to Miss Dulany--"

Both men turned, for at the far end of the room Katrine stood, under the swinging light of a j.a.panese lamp, regarding them.

She came rapidly toward them, her head a little forward, her cheeks scarlet, and a gleam of temper in her eyes, which Frank had never seen, but with which Dermott was not unfamiliar, and took a place between them.

"See!" she cried, smiling, and there was never another woman in all the world who had the appealing smile of Katrine Dulany. "Don't let us make this all so dreadful. There is just some mistake," she said, with a gesture of impatience; and from here she went on with a certain terrifying ability, peculiarly her own, to come directly to a point.

"Oh," she said, with a gesture including them both, "you've done what I asked you not to do, Dermott!" she said. "You've claimed a yet unproven thing. I'm tired of the whole of it. It is better that we three should understand one another altogether and not go talking by twos," and she faced Dermott as she turned. "You may prove everything, and I'll never believe a word of it! Give me Ravenel, and I'll return it to those to whom it belongs. It's his," indicating Frank, "and his mother's, and they shall keep it, no matter what you prove! As for me!" she laughed, giving herself a shake as a bird does. "Hark!" she cried, raising one finger. Softly, as a bird calls to the purpling east at dawn, she took a note, listening intently, going up, up, up, till the tone, a mere thread of gladness, reached high E, where it swelled, rounder and fuller, until it seemed to fill all s.p.a.ce, descending in a sparkling shower of chromatics to lower G.

"Did you mark that?" she cried, in a defiant bit of appreciation of herself. "What do I need with money? I can go out on the streets and come back with hands full." And before they could answer she had disappeared through one of the long windows of the piazza.

"And what do you think of that, now?" demanded Dermott of Frank, with a touch of the brogue, as they stood together in some bewilderment, looking after her.

XXV

KATRINE IN NEW YORK

The following morning, in a drizzling rain and wind from the east, Dermott McDermott stood beside Katrine at the station, arranging for her comfort, directing her maid, and wiring Nora in New York, lest she should be unprepared for this hastily determined return to the city.

"I was sorry for Ravenel last night, Katrine," he said, with an earnest sympathy in his tone. "I think I have never known a man who drew me to him less; but that has nothing to do with the matter. I was sorry for him," he repeated. "Isn't it a dreadful performance, this tragedy of life?" he demanded, looking down at her intently, unmindful of noise of luggage or the shrill voices of the pa.s.sers to and fro. "But the thing to do," he cried, straightening himself and raising his chest, "is to show a brave front always! Never let the world know you're downed in anything. So carry all off with a laugh and a song. Plant flowers on the graves, flowers for the world to see, and for the great Power above as well, that He may know we are not whining--that we're down here doing the best we can."

They stood, hands clasped, on the platform as the train drew in, looking into each other's eyes, and Katrine's lips trembled as she spoke the word "good-bye."

"Sure it's not 'good-bye' at all," Dermott cried, changing his mood to cheer her--"not 'good-bye' at all! I'll be in town in a day or two bothering you with my visits and advice. And if anything definite turns up about the Ravenel matter I'll write you. Do you know, Katrine, I felt so sorry for him last night I'm almost hoping he can disprove everything."