"Nothing that I can now think of," he answered, adding with some vehemence: "Katrine Dulany, is it that you know me so little? My cousin suffered much. She was deserted by a scoundrel while little more than a child. These things must be paid for. But if you think I'd do a crooked thing in business to settle a grudge or belittle a rival, you don't know me at all. There's none, not Ravenel himself, who will demand everything proven beyond doubt sooner than I. I'll take every point I can honestly, but the man who is not absolutely honest in business is a fool. Until he learns to be honest from the higher reason, he should be honest from selfishness. It pays. It's capital." "Then you believe the cause just?" "I believe that the present Ravenel's father married in America knowing that he had a living wife and child in France." Katrine stood, hand-clasped, looking straight into Dermott's eyes. But what she saw was an old garden in Carolina, wind-blown pines, the scarlet creepers around an old bench, and a man with blanched face and restless eyes; what she heard, underneath Dermott's voice, were words from the past: _"I might lie to you, but the thing that separates us is family pride, family pride. I am going away to-day, going because I do not dare to stay!"_ "Nothing else in life could hurt Mr. Ravenel as this thing will if proven," she said, at length. "Naturally not," McDermott answered, succinctly; "but it is not proven yet," he added, in an impartial tone, adding, "I have not been able to find the witness I need." Was it Katrine's imagination that made her think the door moved suddenly as by human agency? Had some of the servants been listening? She paused in her talk, and, looking into the hall, saw Quantrelle the Red pass quickly up the stairs with his daily flower for Madame de Nemours. "And, believing that Ravenel did not belong to Mr. Ravenel," she continued, "you encouraged him to build the railroad?" "I neither encouraged nor discouraged that enterprise," Dermott answered. "Fate steered, and did it well." "And Mrs. Ravenel?" The name, as she spoke it, was a remonstrance. "Mademoiselle Dulany," Dermott answered, "indeed you've a wrong conception of the matter. There is to be no stage play or newspaper work in the case. It will be quietly adjusted. The Ravenels are not people to permit any publicity. There will be compromises. Mrs. Ravenel, I hope, need never know the facts in the case. There is none need ever know, save Frank." "You have never liked him, have you, Dermott?" Katrine asked, with directness. "Never," Dermott answered, with a frankness matching her own. "Why?" "Faith, and there are three excellent reasons," Dermott returned, with something of his old manner: "He was himself; I was myself; and a third," he paused, with all the power of his personality in his great gray eyes, "a third," he repeated, "which I hope some time to explain to you at great length, little Katrine." XX THE INFLUENCE OF WORK