"And you will have her if you want her; for you are so beautiful and dear and sweet, no woman could help loving you."
And with this biased assurance he fell asleep, as she sat by his bedside with her hand on his cheek.
[XVII]
MCDERMOTT VISITS HIS FRENCH COUSIN
It was true that Dermott's sudden departure for Europe had troubled Frank. But it would have disturbed him more had he known the truth, for McDermott was not only bent upon seeing Katrine, but was stirring another trouble for Frank, a trouble which McDermott felt had already slept too long.
The week before the Irishman sailed (it was the very day upon which he decided, with a laugh to himself, to give up the railroad fight and allow the new company to build the road on the Ravenel land) he wrote his French cousin, the Countess de Nemours, thus:
BEAUTIFUL LADY WITHOUT MERCY,—I am writing in a perturbed state of mind, for I think I shall get for you a great fortune. You do not answer my letters, though I have written at the lowest estimate ten thousand times. I want the date of your first marriage securely stated in written evidence; also the dates of the
birth and death of the child. I want every scrap of paper which you have, concerning that sad affair of thirty years ago, ready for me when I arrive in Paris two weeks from to-day.
There is a little girl over there studying music in whom I want you to interest yourself. Her name is Katrine Dulany. She is with Josef.
Yours of the Shamrock,
DERMOTT MCDERMOTT.