"'Better is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city,'" she had read. She was a child at the time; she did not understand the words.
"What does that mean, grandad?" she had said.
"It means that God loves the true conqueror, child," he answered. "It is the greatest thing in all the world for a man to rule his own spirit—so to rule it that God's will may be his will."
"I think I know," she had answered vaguely.
She ran away then to feed her chickens, and that ended the matter; but the verse returned to her to-day.
"If to rule my spirit is to be willing to eat the bread of charity—if that is God's will, then it can never be mine," she said to herself.
A volume of spray dashed on her face and half-blinded her. She rose, stretched herself, put on her hat, and prepared to return to the lodgings.
"I shall go to Redgarth to-morrow morning," she said to herself. "I suppose I am conquered, but I can't help myself. I never, never will eat the bread of charity!"
She left the cave, and turned her face homeward. She walked a dozen steps, then she stood still. How long had she been in the cave? What had happened? Surely the tide had come up very fast. That long stretch of beach with the headland at the farther end seemed, somehow, wonderfully shortened.
"Impossible"—said Kate, with a thrill of horror in her voice—"impossible that the water can already have reached the headland. Oh, no! I am deceived by the distance, but I see that I have no time to lose. I must run, or I shall be shut in by the tide."