She had clasped her knees, making of herself a magnetic bunch of color and lovableness, and she let her eyes rest in his a moment before she spoke. "Don't talk that way, will you? I like to think of you always as a great man--a man of action, a man who helps." They regarded each other steadily for a full minute before he said: "It has begun." "What?" she asked, mystified. "That mental treatment you spoke of some time ago. You are having a terrible effect on me, Katrine, and I find it extremely uncomfortable," he added, laughing. VIII FRANK YIELDS TO TEMPTATION During the time of the house-party at Ravenel, Katrine gave vent to the natural rebellion against her position but once. Dermott was away on some business in New York; the daily letter from Dr. Johnston concerning her father's condition had not arrived; and she had seen the gay people from Ravenel coach past her as she sat alone on the Chestnut Ridge. For nearly a week she had been sleeping badly, awakening every hour or two through the night with something--something that could not be put aside--pressing upon her soul. Huddled in a sad little heap, in her white gown by the side of the bed, one unbearable night she stretched her arms along the coverlet, sobbing out to the everlasting silence the questionings as to what she had done to be so neglected and set apart. "What has been in my life but shame--shame which was not mine?" she cried, as the horror of life with her drunken father came back to her. "Why are some given everything," she demanded, "and I nothing? Where is God's justice? What have I done; oh, what have I done?" Out in the wooded silence a bird began to sing a mournful melody. Of the greatness of night he sang, and dead morns, and dropping stars; of dear forgotten things and loves that might have been, that may not be; of passion and unfulfilled desires, and through the pines the song entered her heart like a response. She listened, not as a girl listening to a bird, but as one artist listens to another with a rapture of appreciation. And the music comforted her. And later, in the midst of great sorrow, she saw intended significance in the occurrence. "It was an answer," she said, "to remind me that there will always be that solace. Give me, oh God," she prayed, "power to make of all my sorrow music for the world!" The day following her midnight protest she heard from Nora and old Cæsar that the guests at Ravenel had gone; heard as well that "old Miss and Marse Frank were goin' shortly"; heard it with a stirring at her heart of physical pain to which she had grown used.