“There is nothing to forgive.  It may be a matter of regret that you are a Boone in blood rather than an Ovid, and that you imitate the Boones in obstinacy.  But justice has been done, and there’s no need to quarrel about strangers.”

She didn’t understand in the least what he meant about justice being done.  Remembering that all was well, she smiled as they entered the library, and when she had removed her wraps, said, in repressed triumph:  “You need never attempt the role of Shylock again.  I play Portia better than you play the Jew.  You have lost your pound of flesh.”

“Well, be magnanimous.  Don’t abuse your victory.  I shouldn’t, in your place; but women are never merciful to the fallen.”

“I am to you.  For, see, I kiss you as gayly as when I believed you all heart and goodness.”

“Now you believe me no heart and badness?”

“I didn’t say that, I say you are given over to sinful hates, and I must correct you.”

“Well, I’m willing now to be corrected.”

“But the correction will be a severe one; you must prepare for a very grievous penance.”

“Knowing you, I can foresee that you won’t spare the rod.  Very well, I’ll try to get used to it.”

At this moment a servant came to the door.

“A note for Miss Kate,” she said.  Kate tore it open and read: 

“Come to me at once.  I have frightful news from
Washington.  As it concerns Jack you ought to know it.

“OLYMPIA.”

She read the lines twice before she could seize the meaning.  Frightful news concerning Jack!  Had he suffered a relapse?  Had he been accidentally hurt?  No; if it had been news of that sort, Olympia would have come herself.  A gleam of prescience shot through her brain.  The court—­the charges against Jack!  That was it.  That was the secret of her father’s equanimity under her raillery.  She turned with a rush into the library.  The bad blood of the Boones was all up in her soul now.  She walked straight at, not to her father, and, holding Olympia’s note before him, said in bitter scorn: 

“Tell me what this means.  I know that you know.”

He took the paper with leisurely unconcern, affecting not to remark Kate’s flashing wrath; he read the lines, handed the paper back, or held it toward Kate, who put her hands behind her.

“Since it concerns you, my child, suppose you go over and ask Miss Sprague.  How should I know the affairs of such superior people?”

“Could nothing soften you?—­humanize you, I was going to say.  Could nothing satisfy you but the death of this injured family?—­for this blow will kill them.  Kill them?  Why should they care to live when that noble fellow has been dishonored by your cruel acts?  Ah, I know what you have done!  You have brought the court to disgrace Jack—­to make him appear a deserter.  You it was who, in some mysterious way, caused him to be abducted into the small-pox ward among the rebel prisoners.  But it shall all be made known.  I shall myself go on the stand and testify to your handiwork.  Yes, I am a Boone in this.  I will follow the lesson you have set me.  I will avenge the innocent and save him by exposing the guilty.”