That Ray was at home in such surroundings, and that, had she been willing to give him the welcome he expected, she might have had a welcome at these as yet unopened doors through which he passed with conscious suavity, sometimes occurred to her.  She was but human—­and but woman—­and she could not be completely oblivious to such things.  But they did not, after all, wear a very alluring aspect.

When she dreamed of being happy, as she often did, it was not amid such scenes.  Sometimes, when she was half-sleeping, and vague visions of joy haunted the farther chambers of her brain, she saw herself walking among mountains.  The setting sun glittered on distant, splendid snows; the torrent rushed by her, filling the world with its clamor; beneath lay the valley, and through the gathering gloom she could see the light of homes.  Then, as sleep drew nearer and the actual world slipped farther away, she seemed to be treading the path—­homeward—­with some companion.  Which of those lights spelled home for her she did not know, and whenever she tried to see the face of her companion, the shadows grew deeper,—­as deep as oblivion,—­and she slept.

She was lonely.  She felt she had missed much in missing Ray.  She knew her friends disapproved of her; and she was profoundly ashamed that they should have seen her in that light, expectant hour in which she awaited this lover who appeared to be no lover, after all.  But she deserved her humiliation.  She had conducted herself like the expectant bride, and she had no right to any such attitude because her feelings were not those of a bride.

The thing that she did desperately care about just now was the fitting-up of a home for mothers and babes in the Wisconsin woods.  It was to be a place where the young Polish mothers of a part of her district could go and forget the belching horror of the steel mills, and the sultry nights in the crowded, vermin-haunted homes.  She hoped for much from it—­much more than the physical recuperation, though that was not to be belittled.  There was some hitch, at the last, about the endowment.  A benevolent spinster had promised to remember the prospective home in her will and neglected to do so and now there were several thousands to be collected from some unknown source.  Kate was absorbed with that when she was not engaged with her regular work.  Moreover, she made a point of being absorbed.  She could not endure the thought that she might be going about with a love-lorn, he-cometh-not expression.

* * * * *

Life has a way of ambling withal for a certain time, and then of breaking into a headlong gallop—­bolting free—­plunging to catastrophe or liberty.  Kate went her busy ways for a fortnight, somewhat chastened in spirit, secretly a little ashamed, and altogether very determined to make such a useful person of herself that she could forget her apparent lack of attractions (for she told herself mercilessly that if she had been very much desired by Ray he would not have been able to leave her upon so slight a provocation).  Then, one day,—­it was the last day of May and the world had rejuvenated itself,—­she came across him.