Katrine, left alone, poured the tea herself, her eyes scanning the news indifferently until they rested on some heavy black lines heading the last column. Again and again she looked, hoping that the printing would stay still, would stop seeming to dance up and down between the floor and ceiling—stop long enough for her to get its dreadful import:
REPORTED ASSIGNMENT OF FRANCIS RAVENEL!
Combined Attack Made on M.S. and R. Railroad!
Mr. Ravenel Dangerously Ill at the Savoy!
Dangerously ill! Dangerously ill! Dangerously ill! The words began going over and over in her brain, seeming to strike from within on her temples in a kind of hammering that she felt would set her mad. She stood helpless, her career, her work, her ambition gone from her in a divine self-forgetting and desire to help, as his gayety, his charm, "his difference" from all others came back to her. She made new excuses for his conduct. She told herself, as a mother
might speak of a child, that he had been so spoiled. She remembered only the best of him—his kindness to her father, his generosity to herself.
She had long since realized the weight of Frank's words the morning of their parting.