Her struggle for the mastery became unimportant in her thoughts--a folly, a waste.

For what her father had said was true; she cared for Chayne.

And what she herself had said to Chayne when first he came to the House of the Running Water was no less true.

"If I loved, I think nothing else would count at all except that I loved." She had judged herself aright.

She knew that, as she lay prone upon her bed, plunged in misery, while the birds called upon the boughs in the garden and the mill stream filled the room with its leaping music.
In a few minutes a servant knocked upon the door and told her that tea was ready in the library; but she returned no answer.