* * * * *

What really happened in Silvertree that day changed, as it happened, the course of Kate’s life.  Sorrow came to her afterward, disappointment, struggle, but never so heavy and dragging a pain as she knew that Christmas Day.

She had been trying in many unsuspected ways to relieve her father’s grim misery,—­a misery of which his gaunt face told the tale,—­and although he had said that he wished for “no flubdub about Christmas,” she really could not resist making some recognition of a day which found all other homes happy.  When the doctor came in for his midday meal, Kate had a fire leaping in the old grate with the marble mantel and a turkey smoking on a table which was set forth with her choicest china and silver.  She had even gone so far as to bring out a dish distinctly reminiscent of her mother,—­the delicious preserved peaches, which had awaked unavailing envy in the breasts of good cooks in the village.  There was pudding, too, and brandy sauce, and holly for decorations.  It represented a very mild excursion into the land of festival, but it was too much for Dr. Barrington.

He had come in cold, tired, hungry, and, no doubt, bitterly sorrowful at the bottom of his perverse heart.  He discerned Kate in white—­it was the first time she had laid off her mourning—­and with a chain of her mother’s about her neck.  Beyond, he saw the little Christmas feast and the old silver vase on the table, red with berries.

“You didn’t choose to obey my orders,” he said coldly, turning his unhappy blue eyes on her.

“Your orders?” she faltered.

“There was to be no fuss and feathers of any sort,” he said.  “Christmas doesn’t represent anything recognized in my philosophy, and you know it.  We’ve had enough of pretense in this house.  I’ve been working to get things on a sane basis and I believed you were sensible enough to help me.  But you’re just like the rest of them—­you’re like all of your sex.  You’ve got to have your silly play-time.  I may as well tell you now that you don’t give me any treat when you give me turkey, for I don’t like it.”

“Oh, dad!” cried Kate; “you do!  I’ve seen you eat it many times!  Come, really it’s a fine dinner.  I helped to get it.  Let’s have a good time for once.”

“I have plenty of good times, but I have them in my own way.”

“They don’t include me!” cried Kate, her lips quivering.  “You’re too hard on me, dad,—­much too hard.  I can’t stand it, really.”

He sat down to the table and ran his finger over the edge of the carving-knife.

“It wouldn’t cut butter,” he declared.  “Martha, bring me the steel!”

“I sharpened it, sir,” protested Martha.

“Sharpened it, did you?  I never saw a woman yet who could sharpen a knife.”

He began flashing the bright steel, and the women, their day already in ashes, watched him fascinatedly.  He was waiting to pounce on them.  They knew that well enough.  The spirit of perversity had him by the throat and held him, writhing.  He carved and served, and then turned again to his daughter.