Presently it seemed to her as if some one were near, a dear familiar presence she had learned to associate with that threshold; a strength to lean her weakness on; a hand gripping hers; eyes that held her with their tenderness, would not let her go. By a great effort she raised her lids. The vision held. A voice said steadily: "Quiet, Kate. Remember your baby." But she had no thought of excitement. It seemed too natural to have him there. "I knew--you would come--if you could--" she whispered. He knelt beside her. She drew his head down to her breast, just above where the baby lay. So they stayed a while without speaking. There was some sort of commotion downstairs; a cry, instantly hushed. The old doctor entered the room in haste, and paused, staring. After a moment he went out softly, clearing his throat. A mulatto-girl, curiously gray of face, was mounting fierce guard over the door, and would allow no others to enter. Then came a sound of trampling feet in the road, as of men bearing some heavy burden. Benoix began to speak, in a low and rapid whisper: "Whatever comes now, you will remember how I have loved you. From the very first, when I saw you riding to me--There is for every man one woman, only we are fools and do not wait. Wherever I am, my love shall reach you. They cannot keep my love from going to you, and you will know. For me there is only you in the world. The other things are shadows. You will remember--whatever happens, you will remember?" She smiled: there was no need to answer. She asked, incuriously: "What are those feet in the hall? What are they carrying?" He answered, "Basil Kildare." "Basil? He is hurt?" "He is dead," said Benoix. After a moment she began to laugh--but very softly, so that the sleeping baby on her breast might not be disturbed: "Oh, thank God, thank God! God is good to us, Jacques!" He stopped the terrible words on her lips with his own. There were feet on the stairs. He tried to speak to her once more from the door, but he could not. He closed the door behind him. CHAPTER VII The peace of that quiet time with her lover remained with Kate through the days that followed, even as he had intended it should, guarding her like an armor from the seething excitement of the world beyond her door. Wailing servants, friends arriving from far and near, people filling the house with lamentations (for the kindly magic of Death had transformed Kildare for the moment into the noblest of mortals)--all this stopped at the door of the quiet room where Mahaly mounted guard over the mistress she had betrayed. None entered that room save the old doctor, and later Kate's mother, become suddenly an old woman, broken by the terrible rumors which had penetrated her peaceful Bluegrass home. She was shocked beyond words to find her newly widowed daughter serene as some Madonna out of a painting, wrapped in a rose-colored dressing-gown that would better have suited a bride.