“I am nearing the end, my dear Irish cousin, and would set the house in order before I go.  What little I have (it is almost nothing, for the house goes back to the estate at my death and my income has never been large) I want to give to Katrine Dulany.  I want her to have, in the old phrase, everything of which I die possessed.  And of course I desire you to be the executor.  Will you arrange the necessary papers and bring them with you when you come to hear her sing?  And I’m hoping I may be still here to greet you and thank you once more for a lifetime of loyalty and devotion.”

Sitting in his New York office, Dermott read the lines with a face saddened and gray.  But the smile, so peculiarly his own, filled with cynicism and humor, came to his lips at its close.

“Talk of justice!” he said.  “Why, poetry can’t touch this!  Things always square themselves in the long run, though we may not live to see them do it, but this is one of the times when poetic justice itself got on the job.”

Dermott answered this letter of Madame de Nemours in person as soon as business made it possible.  Katrine, who understood from the Countess the significance of his coming, awaited him in the reception-room on the second floor.  The curtains were drawn; a fitful fire made the figures in the tapestry advance and retreat; the candles in silver sconces lit up a misty Greuze over the mantel-shelf.  A great bowl of white roses filled the room with fragrance, and Dermott thought, as he bent over Katrine’s hand, that it was all but an exquisite setting for the girl herself.

Nearly a year had passed since their last meeting, and naturally Dermott expected some change in her.  But Katrine was entirely unprepared for the change in Dermott.  She had known but the one side of him in Carolina.  On his previous visits to Paris, while grateful for his kindness, she was preoccupied and sad.  And so, of the serious-eyed man with the beautiful pallor and grave courtesy, she had scant remembrance.

On the instant of his coming, however, she recollected memories of the old days; recalled that underneath his bright and stagelike behavior there had ever been a certain constant attention, a sweeping glance, a quiet scrutiny of persons unaware of his observance, a memory of details and words and dates in some degree inhuman, and in the first hand-clasp she recognized the power she had not had the vision to see in the years before.

With both hands in his and her breath caught in her throat with gratitude, she said: 

“If you think I’m going to try to thank you for all you’ve done for me here in Paris, you’re mistaken, Dermott.  I’m not.”  And then, with a quick catching of the breath:  “I couldn’t do it adequately, no matter how I tried.  I know it was you who arranged for me to live here with Madame de Nemours; I know how you’ve been writing to Josef concerning my studies; I know how your kindness has followed me everywhere.  That’s why I can’t thank you,” she said, with dewy lashes and the deep note in her voice which made her speech ever seem like a caress.