But in planning to get the “whip hand” Mrs. Holt reckoned without Kate.  She had been under the whip hand all her life.  Her dash to freedom had not been accomplished without both mental and physical hurt.  She was doing nothing but going over her past life minutely, and as she realized more fully with each review how barren and unlovely it had been, all the strength and fresh young pride in her arose in imperative demand for something better in the future.  She listened with interest to what George Holt said to her.  All her life she had been driven by a man of inflexible will, his very soul inoculated with greed for possessions which would give him power; his body endowed with unfailing strength to meet the demands he made on it, and his heart wholly lacking in sentiment; but she did not propose to start her new life by speaking of her family to strangers.  George Holt’s experiences had been those of a son spoiled by a weak woman, one day petted, the next bribed, the next nagged, again left to his own devices for days, with strong inherited tendencies to be fought, tendencies to what he did not say.  Looking at his heavy jaw and swarthy face, Kate supplied “temper” and “not much inclination to work.”  He had asked her to teach him, she would begin by setting him an example in the dignity of self-control; then she would make him work.  How she would make that big, strong man work!  As she sat there on the bank of the ravine, with a background of delicately leafed bushes and the light of the setting sun on her face and her hair, George Holt studied her closely, mentally and physically, and would have given all he possessed if he had not been so hasty.  He saw that she had a good brain and courage to follow her convictions, while on closer study he decided that she was moulded on the finest physical lines of any woman he ever had seen, also his study of medicine taught him to recognize glowing health, and to set a right estimate on it.  Truly he was sorry, to the bottom of his soul, but he did not believe in being too humble.  He said as much in apology as he felt forced, and then set himself the task of calling out and parading the level best he could think up concerning himself, or life in general.  He had tried farming, teaching, merchandise, and law before he had decided his vocation was medicine.

On account of Robert Gray, Kate was much interested in this, but when she asked what college he was attending, he said he was going to a school in Chicago that was preparing to revolutionize the world of medicine.  Then he started on a hobby that he had ridden for months, paying for the privilege, so Kate learned with surprise and no small dismay that in a few months a man could take a course in medicine that would enable him “to cure any ill to which the human flesh is heir,” as he expressed it, without knowing anything of surgery, or drugs, or using either.  Kate was amazed and said so at once.  She disconcertingly inquired what he would do with patients who had sustained