"Now you believe me no heart and badness?"
"I didn't say that, I say you are given over to sinful hates, and I must correct you."
"Well, I'm willing now to be corrected."
"But the correction will be a severe one; you must prepare for a very grievous penance."
"Knowing you, I can foresee that you won't spare the rod. Very well,
I'll try to get used to it."
At this moment a servant came to the door.
"A note for Miss Kate," she said. Kate tore it open and read:
"Come to me at once. I have frightful news from
Washington. As it concerns Jack you ought to know it.
"OLYMPIA."
She read the lines twice before she could seize the meaning. Frightful news concerning Jack! Had he suffered a relapse? Had he been accidentally hurt? No; if it had been news of that sort, Olympia would have come herself. A gleam of prescience shot through her brain. The court—the charges against Jack! That was it. That was the secret of her father's equanimity under her raillery. She turned with a rush into the library. The bad blood of the Boones was all up in her soul now. She walked straight at, not to her father, and, holding Olympia's note before him, said in bitter scorn: