The thought troubled her after she had left them together for the coffee and cigars. She had believed for a long time, as she had told Frank in the rose-garden, that Dermott was in Carolina on some business connected with Ravenel, and she had an instinct that the affair was to be brought to a head to-night.

From her place in the hall she could see that Dermott had brought his chair around to Frank's side at the table, and she heard him say:

"You know--or probably, with your celestial indifference to business affairs, Ravenel, you don't know that there is a small piece of land on the other side of the Silver Fork which belongs to your estate. In looking up some old t.i.tles I discovered it. It's like this." He drew a note-book from his pocket, drawing as he talked. "Here's Loon Mountain.

Here's the Silver Fork. Here's the Way-Home River. Ye've the right, I discover, to the land marked R. It's, as you know, of small value to you, and I'm wanting it. It's a vagary of mine. I may be going to raise eagles on it."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

At the words, Katrine, who had been retuning an old guitar, took alarm and was alert on the instant. Striking it quickly, insistently, she came to the door of the dining-room, which framed her beauty like a picture.

"I'm going to sing you an Irish song, a real Irish song!" she cried, gayly, touching the strings. The men turned, and Francis, with the land on the other side of the Silver Fork clear out of his mind at sight of her, came near the doorway where she stood.

"Come all ye men and fair maids And listen to my song, I'll sing of Bloomin' Caroline, Who never did a wrong.

SHE

Beats the fragrant roses, She's admired by all aroun'.

They call her Bloomin' Caroline, Of Edinboro Town."

She played an interlude carelessly.

"Young Henry, being a Highland lad, A-courting her he came, And when her parents heard of it They did not like the same.

so

She bundled up her costly robes, The stairs came tripping down, And away went Bloomin' Caroline From Edinboro Town."

Dermott had risen and stood by the far window, looking into the night.

Unseen by him, she touched Frank on the sleeve.

"Do not do anything he asks you to do to-night," she whispered, with great intensity, and in a minute more was back at the singing.

"They had not been in London For scarcely half a year--"

and before the song ended the two men were joining the refrain, taken out of themselves by her beauty and charm.

For nearly a week after this she saw neither of them again, but her honest soul was fretted by the word she had given against a true friend; so, when she saw Dermott riding along the river-bank, she called to him from the rocks upon which she sat.

"Dermott McDermott," she cried, "come here!"

He rode through the ferns and undergrowth toward her, as she stood looking up at him with fearless eyes.

"I've done something I want to tell you, something you won't like, for it was going against you; and it makes me feel that I've not been quite loyal to you, you that's always been so good to me, too." The quick tears filled her eyes as she spoke.

He dismounted to be nearer her, and, putting out his hand, said:

"There's nothing you could do that's not forgiven. You hold my heart in the hollow of your hand. What did ye do, child?"

"The other night when I saw you turning Mr. Ravenel the way you wanted by your flattery and your hypnotic presence, I knew ye wished him to do something for you. I knew when you told him how clever he was--_cleverer than you were yourself_--that it must be something very great to make you admit a thing like that. And when you were not near I warned him against selling you that land. I said: 'Don't do anything Dermott McDermott wants you to do to-night." Here she broke into a storm of weeping. "You see, he's been so kind to me," she explained.

Dermott stood looking at her with pity and admiration as he put his hand gently on her shoulder.

"Ye did just what was right, little lady; just the thing that any sweet, grateful woman should have done. You understood what I was doing, thought a friend might be cajoled wrongly, and warned him against it.

I'm proud of ye for it!" he cried, with enthusiasm. "Proud of you!" he repeated. "And besides," he added, with a laugh, "it didn't make the slightest difference. He did it anyhow! We signed the papers to-day!"

"The papers for what?" she demanded.

"For that useless bit of land on the other side of the fork," he responded.

"Dermott," she said, "you play fair, don't you? You wouldn't take advantage of any one?"

"Wouldn't I?" he said. "If it were to help you, I'd outwit the deil himself, Lady Katrine."

VII

KATRINE'S OWN COUNTRY

In the following fortnight Francis and Katrine met but three times.

One day, having grown restless, she went to walk, taking the road from the plantation back into the mountains. Returning by the ford, she heard laughter and the ring of horses' hoofs, and by a sudden turn of the road came directly upon Frank, who, separated from a party, was riding beside Anne Lennox. At first sight of her whom she knew instinctively to be a rival, Katrine was reminded of a golden peony, for the pale-yellow hair, bright hazel eyes shot with yellow light, and thick, creamy skin had given Anne Lennox from early childhood a noticeable and flower-like beauty. A long-limbed, slender, full-breasted, laughing woman, with square shoulders and the carriage of one much accustomed to the saddle, she looked with curiosity at Katrine, who was standing aside beneath the elderberry-bushes to permit them to pa.s.s.

"As I was saying," Anne had just remarked, "when you act as you have done since I have been here, Frank, it's always a woman. At Biarritz, you remember, it was Mrs. Vaughn. That beast of a spring at Marno, it was Mrs. McIntire. You might as well tell me who it is. You will in the end."

"Upon my honor, Anne--" Frank began, with a laugh, when he met the clear eyes of Katrine looking at him from below.

If there had been some coldness, some resentment at his lack of attention to her, or implied jealousy at his devotion to another, he could have understood it. But there was nothing of the kind. In those eyes, which he believed the most beautiful in the world, there was nothing but a glad light at seeing him, a bright smile of recognition in which he could detect neither remembrance nor regret.

Anne Lennox turned her keen brown eyes backward to look at Katrine as she crossed the bridge. "Frank Ravenel," she exclaimed, "if a girl who looks like that lives near you, you have been making love to her! I wonder if by any chance she could be _the_ woman!"

"She is the daughter of the new overseer," Frank answered; and his tone implied, though the words were not spoken: "and by this reason out of the cla.s.s." The statement was made with misleading frankness, and Anne Lennox, understanding his pride, put the affair from her mind.

The next time of meeting between Francis and Katrine was one morning on the river road. Her cheeks flushed at sight of him, and there was an odd reserve in her manner; but she never seemed more beautiful.

He stood, hat in hand, wondering at her silence, a bit amused.

"It is a pleasant day," he suggested, at length, remotely.

"It _is_ pleasant," she answered, with averted eyes.

"Unusual weather for this season, don't you think?" he went on, a bit of teasing in his tone.

"I haven't thought of it," she said, concisely.

"Suppose you think about it now," he suggested, jesting still, but not quite at ease concerning her mood.