“I understand,” said Kate.

They sat on their little low, sand-swept balcony, facing the sea.  The rising tide filled the world with its soft and indescribable cadence.  The stars came out into the sky according to their rank—­the greatest first, and after them the less, and the less no more lacking in beauty than the great.  All was as it should be—­all was ordered—­all was fit and wonderful.

“So,” went on Honora, after a silence which the sea filled in with its low harmonies, “if you loved Karl—­”

“Wait!” said Kate.  So Honora waited.  Another silence fell.  Then Kate spoke brokenly.

“If to feel when I am with him that I have reached my home; if to suffer a strangeness even with myself, and to feel less familiar with myself than with him, is to love, then I love him, Honora.  If to want to work with him, and to feel there could be no exultation like overcoming difficulties with him, is love, then truly I love him.  If just to see him, at a distance, enriches the world and makes the stream of time turn from lead to gold is anything in the nature of love, then I am his lover.  If to long to house with him, to go by the same name that he does, to wear him, so to speak, carved on my brow, is to love, then I do.”

“Then I foresee that you will be one of the happiest women in the world.”

“No!  No; you mustn’t say that.  Aren’t there other things than love, Honora,—­better things than selfish delight?”

“My dear, you have no call to distress yourself about the occult meanings of that word ‘selfish.’  Unselfish people—­or those who mean to be so—­contrive, when they refuse to follow the instincts of their hearts, to cause more suffering even than the out-and-out selfish ones.”

“But I have an opportunity to serve thousands—­maybe hundreds of thousands of human beings.  I can set in motion a movement which may have a more lasting effect upon my country than any victory ever gained by it on a field of battle; and perhaps in time the example set by this land will be followed by others.  Dare I face that mystic, inner ME and say:  ’I choose my man, I give him all my life, and I resign my birthright of labor.  For this personal joy I refuse to be the Sister of the World; I let the dream perish; I hinder a great work’?  Oh, Honora, I want him, I want him!  But am I for that reason to be false to my destiny?”

“You want celebrity!” said Honora with sudden bitterness.  “You want to go to Washington, to have your name numbered among the leading ones of the nation; you are not willing to spend your days in the solitude of Williston Ranch as wife to its master.”

“I will not say that you are speaking falsely, but I think you know you are setting out only a little part of the truth.  Admit it, Honora.”

Honora sighed heavily.