The room was dark save for a night light. Frank's face was turned toward her, his eyes closed. One hand, helpless, unutterably appealing, lay outside the white cover, and at sight of him thus it seemed her heart would break. With a swift movement she knelt beside the bed, waiting to take the poor, tired head upon her breast. As her eyes grew accustomed to the light, she saw his lips tremble. "Dear," she said. There was silence, and then: "It is worth all--it is worth all--for this," he whispered. "Touch me, Katrine!" And she laid her cheek on his. "Katrine?" "Yes, dear." "You will stay? I will try to sleep now if you will touch me. Katrine, you will not slip away?" "I shall stay until you are quite well, beloved." At three in the morning he awoke with a shiver. "Where are you?" he called. "Where are you, Katrine?" "Here," she answered, laying a hand on his cheek. "Ah, thank God!" * * * * * It was over a month before Mrs. Ravenel and Katrine were able to take Frank south, where he longed to be. The St. Petersburg engagement was cancelled, and the Metropolitan manager, angry at Katrine's forgetfulness to notify him that she could not sing the night Mrs. Ravenel had come for her, made many caustic newspaper criticisms. But both events seemed entirely unimportant to her, for Frank's paralysis, which the doctors had believed but a temporary affair, did not leave him as soon as had been hoped. There was a splendid Celtic recklessness in the way she surrendered everything for him, a generosity which Mrs. Ravenel saw with commending eyes, believing it, by some strange mother-reasoning, to be but just. But Frank was far from taking the same attitude in the matter. Almost the first day he was able to be wheeled on the great piazza in the sunshine he spoke to Katrine of the time she must soon leave, to keep the St. Petersburg engagements. "I have no St. Petersburg engagements," she explained, briefly. "I cancelled them." He sat with closed eyes, but she saw the tears between the lids as he spoke. "I have not had the courage to tell you," he said, at length, slowly, "before, but all that McDermott said is true, Katrine." "Indeed!" Words could not explain the tone. She might have received news of the Andaman Islanders as carelessly. "You know what it means to me!" he said, after a silence. "I know what you think it means to you," she answered.