Madam Crewe put the question with a sort of bravado, but her utterance was slightly unsteady. She did not conclude her sentence. Katherine had grown very white. When she did not respond, the old woman demanded peevishly, "Well, well? What have you to say for yourself? Can’t you speak?" "I say—I can’t marry—Dr. Ballard." The girl rose and stood holding on to the back of her chair with two cold, trembling hands. Her grandmother fairly raised herself up in her seat. "What do you mean——? ’You can’t marry Dr. Ballard?’" Her voice rose to a sharp falsetto. Katherine shook her head. "Nonsense! Whim!" The old woman spoke with unaccountable passion. Dr. Ballard laid a firm, warm hand on Katherine’s cold ones. His face was rather pale, but his tone, when he spoke, was quite composed. "Forgive me," he said. "I see I’ve got in all wrong on this. I didn’t mean to distress you. Let us drop it now, and later, some time, when we two are alone together, we’ll thresh it out, eh?" Again Katherine shook her head. "No, I want never to talk about it again," she said tremulously. "Why?" The old woman asked the question almost fiercely, bending forward to peer searchingly into her granddaughter’s face. For a moment it looked as if Katherine were in danger of being swept off her feet by the intensity of her hidden feeling. She opened her lips, then resolutely closed them again. Her grandmother did not seem to see, or, at all events, did not regard her effort at self-control. "Have you no tongue in your head?" "Say it isn’t true—what you’ve just hinted, about my father and his. Say it isn’t true, and I’ll—_tell_——" "Ho! Do you think I’m to be called to account by you, young miss?" Madam Crewe interrupted testily. "If Dr. Ballard is ready to marry you, in the face of the conditions I asked him to suppose, why, get down on your knees, and thank God for such a disinterested lover. But don’t flatter yourself you can oblige me to do as you choose. I am sixty-eight years old and I will not be forced." Dr. Ballard laughed out. "Don’t you see it’s all nonsense, Katherine? The whole thing isn’t worth a serious thought. If your grandmother likes to have her little joke, why, let us try to see the humor of it. Perhaps she doesn’t want you to marry me. But now she sees it’s inevitable, she’ll——" "No," said Katherine. "It’s not inevitable. I can’t marry you." Dr. Ballard was silent, but Madam Crewe’s words snapped out like sparks from a live wire. "The day Norris was here, you said you would. You _insisted_ you would. Does your refusal now mean you’ve reconsidered the conditions he suggested? You’ve thought better of your first decision?" Katharine gave her a long look. It seemed to her, her humiliation was complete. And still she managed to hold herself in check. "You make it very hard for me—you force me to say things—I—— Very well, then listen! I _do_ love Dr. Ballard and—I’d have married him if—I could!"