Miss Jessup was very eloquent in the paragraph which she devoted to the announcement of the departure of Colonel Tredennis, "the well-known hero of the plains, whose fine, bronzed face and soldierly figure have become so familiar to us during the past three seasons." She could scarcely express the regret felt by the many friends he had made, on losing him, and, indeed, there ran throughout the flowers of speech a suggestion of kindly, admiring sympathy and womanly good-feeling which quite went to the colonel\'s heart, and made him wonder at his own good fortune when he read the paragraph in question. He was far away from Washington when the paper reached him. He had become tired of life at the Capital, it was said, and had been glad to exchange with a man who found its gayeties better suited to him.

"It is true," he said to himself when he heard of this report, "that they were not suited to me, nor I to them."

How he lived through the weeks, performing the ordinary routine of his duty, and bearing with him hour by hour, night and day, the load of grief and well-nigh intolerable anguish which he knew was never to be lighter, he did not know. The days came and went. It was morning, noon, or night, and he did not feel the hours either long or short. There were nights when, his work being done, he returned to his quarters and staggered to his seat, falling upon it blind and sick with the heavy horror of the day.

"This," he would say, again and again, "this is unnatural. To bear such torture and live through it seems scarcely human."

[Pg 533]

Sometimes he was so wrought upon by it physically that he thought he should not live through it; but he bore so much that at last he gained a hopeless faith in his own endurance. He was not alone. It was as he had told her it would be. From the hour that he looked his last upon her, it seemed that her face had never faded from before his aching eyes. He had all the past to live over again, all its bitter mysteries to read in a new light and to learn to understand.

There was time enough now for him to think it all over slowly, to recall to his mind every look and change and tone; her caprices, her coldness, the wounds she had given him, he bore them all again, and each time he came back with a pang more terrible to that last moment—to that last look, to her last, broken words.

"O God!" he cried, "does she bear this too?"

He knew nothing of her save what he gained at rare intervals from Miss Jessup\'s society column, which he read deliberately from beginning to end as each paper reached him. The friends of Mrs. Amory, Miss Jessup\'s first statement announced, would regret to learn that the health of that charming young wife and mother was so far from being what was to be desired, that it necessitated a temporary absence from those social circles of which she was so bright and graceful an ornament. For a while her name was missing from the lists of those who appeared at the various entertainments, and then he began occasionally to see it again, and found a little sad comfort in the thought that she must be stronger. His kind, brown face changed greatly in these days; it grew lean and haggard and hopeless, and here and there a gray thread showed itself in his close, soldier-cropped hair. He planned out heavy work for himself, and kept close in his quarters, and those of his friends who had known him before his stay in Washington began to ask each other what had so broken Philip Tredennis.

The first time that Mrs. Amory appeared in society,[Pg 534] after her indisposition, was at the house of her friend, Mrs. Sylvestre. During her temporary seclusion she had seen Mrs. Sylvestre frequently. There had been few days when Agnes had not spent some hours with her. When she had been denied to every one else Agnes was admitted.

"It is only fatigue, this," Bertha had said; "but other people tire me so! You never tire me."

She was not confined to her bed. She had changed her room, taking possession of the pretty pink and blue chamber, and lay upon the sofa through the days, sometimes looking at the fire, often with her eyes closed.

The two conversed but little; frequently there was silence between them for some time; but Agnes knew that she was doing as Bertha wished when she came and sat with her.

At the end of a week Mrs. Sylvestre came in one morning and found Bertha dressed and sitting in a chair.

"I am going downstairs," she said.

"Do you think you are strong enough?" Agnes asked. She did not look so.

"I must begin to try to do something," was the indirect reply. "One must always begin. I want to lie still and not speak or move; but I must not do that. I will go downstairs, and I think I should like to see Laurence."

As she went down the staircase she moved very slowly, and Agnes saw that she clung to the balustrade for support. When she reached the parlor door she paused for a moment, then crossed the threshold a little hurriedly, and went to the sofa and sat down. She was tremulous, and tears had risen to her eyes from very weakness.

"I thought I was stronger," she said. But she said nothing more until, a few moments later, she began to speak of Tom and Kitty, in whom she had been much interested. It had been at her suggestion that, after divers fruitless efforts, the struggle to obtain Tom a[Pg 535] "place" had been abandoned, and finally there had been procured for him a position, likely to prove permanent, in a house of business, where principles might be of value. Tom\'s lungs were still a trifle delicate, but he was rapturously happy in the small home, to purchase which Mrs. Sylvestre had advanced the means, and his simple bliss was greatly added to by the advent of Kitty\'s baby.

So they talked of Tom and Kitty and the baby, and of Arbuthnot, and his friendship for them, and the oddities of it, and his way of making his efforts and kindness seem more than half a jest.

"No one can be kinder than Laurence," Bertha said. "No one could be a truer friend."

"I think so now," Agnes answered, quietly.

"He is not so light, after all," said Bertha. "Perhaps few of us are quite as light as we seem."

"I did him injustice at first," Agnes replied. "I understand him better now."

"If he should go away you would miss him a little," said Bertha. "He is a person one misses when he is absent."

"Does he"—Agnes began. "I have not heard him speak of going away."

"There is just a likelihood of it," Bertha returned. "Papa has been making an effort for him with the Secretary of State. He might be sent abroad."

"I have not heard him refer to the possibility," said Agnes. Her manner was still quiet, but she had made a slight involuntary movement, which closed the book she held.

"I do not think papa has spoken to him for some time," Bertha replied. "And when he first referred to his plan Laurence thought it out of the question, and did not appear to regard it seriously."

For a few moments Mrs. Sylvestre did not speak. Then she said:

"Certainly it would be much better for him than to remain here."

[Pg 536]

"If he should go," said Bertha, "no one will miss him as I shall. We used to be so gay together, and now"—

She did not end her sentence, and for a while neither of them spoke again, and she lay quite still. Agnes remained to dine with her, and in the evening Arbuthnot came in.

When he entered the bright, familiar room he found himself glancing round it, trying to understand exactly what mysterious change had come upon it. There was no change in its belongings,—the touches of color, the scattered trifles, the pictures and draperies wore their old-time look of having been arranged by one deft hand; but it did not seem to be the room he had known so long,—the room he had been so fond of, and had counted the prettiest and most inspiring place he knew.

Bertha had not left the sofa; she was talking to Agnes, who stood near her. She had a brilliant flush on her cheeks, her eyes were bright when she raised them to greet him, and her hand, as he took it, was hot and tremulous.

"Naturally," she said, "you will begin to vaunt yourself. You told me I should break down if I did not take care of myself, and I have broken down—a little. I am reduced to lying on sofas. Don\'t you know how I always derided women who lie on sofas? This is retribution; but don\'t meet it with too haughty and vainglorious a spirit; before Lent I shall be as gay as ever."

"I don\'t doubt it," he answered. "But in the meantime allow me to congratulate you on the fact that the sofa is not entirely unbecoming."

"Thank you," she said. "Will you sit down now and tell me—tell me what people are saying?"

"Of"—he began.

She smiled.

"Of me," she answered. "They were saying a great[Pg 537] deal of me a week ago; tell me what they say now. You must hear in going your giddy rounds."

"You are very well treated," he replied. "There is a certain great lady who is most uncomfortably commented upon. I can scarcely imagine that she enjoys it."

Her smile ended in a fatigued sigh.

"The tide turned very quickly," she said. "It is well for me that it did. I should not have had much mercy if I had stood alone. Ah! it was a good thing for me that you were all so brave. You might have deserted me, too—it would have been very simple—and then—then the gates of paradise would have been shut against me."

"That figure of speech meaning—?" suggested Arbuthnot.

"That I should have been invited to no more dinner-parties and receptions; that nobody would have come up to my Thursday Evenings; that Miss Jessup would never again have mentioned me in the Wabash Gazette."

"That would have been very bitter," he answered.

"Yes," she returned, "it would have been bitter, indeed."

"Do you know," he said next, "that I have come to-night partly for the reason that I have something to tell you?"

"I rather suspected it," she replied, "though I could scarcely explain why."

"Am I to hear it, too?" inquired Agnes.

"If you are kind enough to be interested," he answered. "It will seem a slight enough affair to the world at large, but it seems rather tremendous to me. I feel a trifle overpowered and nervous. Through the kind efforts of Professor Herrick I have been honored with the offer of a place abroad."

Bertha held out her hand.

"Minister to the Court of St. James!" she said. "How they will congratulate themselves in London!"

[Pg 538]

"They would," he replied, "if an ill-adjusted and singularly unappreciative government had not particularized a modest corner of Germany as standing in greater need of my special abilities." But he took her offered hand.

When he glanced at Mrs. Sylvestre—truth to say he had taken some precautions against seeing her at all as he made his announcement—he found her bestowing upon him one of the calmest of her soft, reflective looks.

"I used to like some of those quiet places in Germany," she said; "but you will find it a change from Washington."

"I think," he answered, "that I should like a change from Washington;" and as soon as he had spoken he detected the touch of acrid feeling in his words.

"I should fancy myself," she said, her soft look entirely undisturbed, "that it might be agreeable after one had been here some time."

He had always admired beyond expression that touch of half-forgetful, pensive calmness in her voice and eyes, but he did not enjoy it just now.

"It is a matter of temperament, I suppose," was his thought; "but, after all, we have been friends."

Neither could it be said that he enjoyed the pretty and picturesque stories of German life she told afterward. They were told so well that they brought very near the life he might expect to lead, and he was not exactly in the mood to care to stand face to face with it. But he controlled himself sufficiently to make an excellent audience, and never had been outwardly in better spirits than he was after the stories were told. He was cool and vivacious; he told a story or two himself; he was in good voice when he went to the piano and sang. They were all laughing when Agnes left the room to put on her wraps to return home.

When she was gone the laugh died down with odd suddenness.

"Larry," said Bertha, "do you really want to go?"

[Pg 539]

"No," he answered, turning sharply, "I don\'t want to go. I loathe and abhor the thought of it."

"You want," she said, "to stay here?"

"Yes, I do," was his reply, "and that decides me."

"To go?" she asked, watching his pale, disturbed face.

"Yes, to go! There is nothing to stay here for. I need the change. I have been here long enough—too long!"

"Yes," she returned, "I think you have been here too long. You had better go away—if you think there is nothing to stay for."

"When a man has nothing to offer"—he broke off and flushed up hotly. "If I had a shadow of a right to a reason for staying," he exclaimed, "do you suppose I should not hold on to it, and fight for it, and demand what belonged to me? There might be a struggle—there would be; but no other man should have one jot or tittle that persistence and effort might win in time for me! A man who gives up is a fool! I have nothing to give up. I haven\'t even the right to surrender! I hadn\'t the right to enter the field and take my wounds like a man! It is pleasant to reflect that it is my own—fault. I trifled with my life; now I want it, and I can\'t get it back."

"Ah!" she said, "that is an old story!"

And then Agnes returned, and he took her home.

On their way there they talked principally of Tom and Kitty.

"They will miss you greatly," Agnes said.

"They will be very kind to do it," was his reply.

"We shall all miss you," she added.

"That will be kinder still," he answered. "Might I be permitted to quote the ancient anecdote of the colored warrior, who, on running away in battle, was reproached and told that a single life counted as nothing on such great occasions, and that if he had fallen he would not have been missed,—his reply to this heroic statement[Pg 540] of the case being, that he should have been likely to miss himself. I shall miss myself, and already a gentle melancholy begins to steal over me. I am not the gleesome creature I was before good luck befell me."

But, despite this lightness of tone, their walk was not a very cheerful one; indeed, after this speech they were rather quiet, and they parted with few words at the door, Arbuthnot declining to go into the house.

When Agnes entered alone Mrs. Merriam looked up from her novel in some surprise.

"I thought I heard Mr. Arbuthnot," she said.

"He left me at the door," Mrs. Sylvestre answered.

"What!" said Mrs. Merriam, "without coming to say good-night to me! I wanted to tell him what a dissipated evening I have been spending with my new book."

"He has been telling us good news," said Agnes, standing before the fire and loosening her furs. "He has been offered a consulship."

Mrs. Merriam closed her book and laid it on the table.

"Will he accept it?" she asked.

"He could scarcely refuse it," Agnes replied. "It is a decided advance; he likes the life abroad, and it might even lead to something better in the future; at least one rather fancies such things are an opening."

"It is true," reflected Mrs. Merriam, "that he seems to have no particular ties to hold him in one place rather than another."

"None," said Agnes. "I don\'t know whether that is his fortune or his misfortune."

"His fortune," said Mrs. Merriam. "He is of the nature to know how to value them. Perhaps, after all, he may form them if he goes abroad. It is not too late."

"Perhaps so," said Agnes. "That would be another reason why it would be better for him to go."

"Still," remarked Mrs. Merriam, "for my own part, I don\'t call it good news that he is going."

[Pg 541]

"I meant," said Agnes, "good news for him."

"It is bad news for us," Mrs. Merriam replied. "He will leave a gap. I have grown inconveniently fond of him myself."

But Agnes made no response, and soon afterward went to her room in silence. She was rather silent the next day when she made her visit to Bertha. Mrs. Merriam observed that she was rather silent at home; but, having seen her retire within herself before, she was too just to assign a definite reason for her quiet mood. Still she watched her with great interest, which had a fashion of deepening when Laurence Arbuthnot appeared upon the scene. But there was no change in her manner toward Arbuthnot. She was glad to see him; she was interested in his plans. Her gentle pleasure in his society seemed neither greater nor less than usual; her gentle regret at his approaching absence from their circle said absolutely nothing. In the gayeties of the closing season they saw even more of each other than usual.

"It will be generous of you to allow me a few additional privileges," Arbuthnot said; "an extra dance or so, for instance, on occasion; a few more calls that I am entitled to. Will you kindly, if you please, regard me in the light of a condemned criminal, and be lenient with me in my last moments?"

She did not re............