"And I'm glad to hear you say that, sir," was the answer. "Well"—hopefully—"things may change for the better in me, and so, good-day," and spurring his horse he was off at a gallop down the broad road, and Ravenel stood listening to the horse's hoofs clatter over the bridge, strike the soft road under the pines, and die away in silence before he turned into the bridle-path which led to the stables.
And a strange thing occurred but a few minutes after this interview, when Frank made his daily visit to the stables. One of the head grooms explained a horse's lameness to him as due to a bad place in the road near the north gate which, he finished, would probably not be mended until Mr. Dulany was over "his coming attack."
"Is he drinking again?" Ravenel asked.
"For three days past," the groom answered.
Francis made no comment whatever, but the next day he discovered the man's suspicions justified, and the third, as he rode to Marlton, he saw Katrine, a pale-faced, desolate little figure, sitting on the garden bench, her head in her hands, the picture of despair. About five o'clock Jerry
drove to the station for Dr. Johnston, and the same evening after the dinner Nora O'Grady's son, a red-haired, unkempt boy of seventeen, brought a short letter from Katrine, asking that the doctor be sent as soon as possible.
"Mr. Dulany is drinking?" Frank said, interrogatively, to the youth.
"Something fierce," was the laconic answer.
"Is he better this evening?"
"Worse. Heart's actin' up," the boy responded.