"Then, of course, you are prepared to answer difficult ones."

"I don't know that that's of course, but I am."

"Well, then, do you wish me to stay? All I have to do is to throw down

my hat, sit down and fold my arms for twenty minutes. I lose my train

and my ship. I stay in America, instead of going to Europe."

"I have thought of all that."

"I don't mean to say it's a great deal. There are pleasures and

pleasures."

"Yes, and especially the former. It is a great deal."

"And you invite me to accept it?"

"No; I ought not to say that. What I ask of you is whether, if I should

so invite you, you would say 'yes.'"

"That makes the matter very easy for you, Miss Moore. What attractions

do you hold out?"

"I hold out nothing whatever, sir."

"I suppose that means a great deal."

"It means what it seems to mean."

"Well, you are certainly a most interesting woman, Miss Moore--a

charming woman."

"Why don't you call me 'fascinating' at once, and bid me good morning?"

"I don't know but that I shall have to come to that. But I will give you

no answer that leaves you at an advantage. Ask me to stay--command me to

stay, if that suits you better--and I will see how it sounds. Come, you

must not trifle with a man." He still held Adela's hand, and they had

been looking frankly into each other's eyes. He paused, waiting for an

answer.

"Good-by, Mr. Ludlow," said Adela. "God bless you!" And she was about to

withdraw her hand; but he held it.

"Are we friends?" said he.

Adela gave a little shrug of her shoulders. "Friends of three hours."

Ludlow looked at her with some sternness. "Our parting could at best

hardly have been sweet," said he; "but why should you make it bitter,

Miss Moore?"

"If it's bitter, why should you try to change it?"

"Because I don't like bitter things."

Ludlow had caught a glimpse of the truth--that truth of which the reader

has had a glimpse--and he stood there at once thrilled and annoyed. He

had both a heart and a conscience. "It's not my fault," he cried to the

latter; but he was unable to add, in all consistency, that it was his

misfortune. It would be very heroic, very poetic, very chivalric, to

lose his steamer, and he felt that he could do so for sufficient

cause--at the suggestion of a fact. But the motive here was less than a

fact--an idea; less than an idea--a fancy. "It's a very pretty little

romance as it is," he said to himself. "Why spoil it? She is an

admirable girl: to have learned that is enough for me." He raised her

hand to his lips, pressed them to it, dropped it, reached the door and

bounded out of the garden gate.

The day was ended.

IV

A MOST EXTRAORDINARY CASE

Late in the spring of the year 1865, just as the war had come to a

close, a young invalid officer lay in bed in one of the uppermost

chambers of one of the great New York hotels. His meditations were

interrupted by the entrance of a waiter, who handed him a card

superscribed _Mrs. Samuel Mason_, and bearing on its reverse the

following words in pencil: "Dear Colonel Mason, I have only just heard

of your being here, ill and alone. It's too dreadful. Do you remember

me? Will you see me? If you do, I think you _will_ remember me. I insist

on coming up. M. M."

Mason was undressed, unshaven, weak, and feverish. His ugly little hotel

chamber was in a state of confusion which had not even the merit of

being picturesque. Mrs. Mason's card was at once a puzzle and a heavenly

intimation of comfort. But all that it represented was so dim to the

young man's enfeebled perception that it took him some moments to

collect his thoughts.

"It's a lady, sir," said the waiter, by way of assisting him.

"Is she young or old?" asked Mason.

"Well, sir, she's a little of both."

"I can't ask a lady to come up here," groaned the invalid.

"Upon my word, sir, you look beautiful," said the waiter. "They like a

sick man. And I see she's of your own name," continued Michael, in whom

constant service had bred great frankness of speech; "the more shame to

her for not coming before."

Colonel Mason concluded that, as the visit had been of Mrs. Mason's own

seeking, he would receive her without more ado. "If she doesn't mind it,

I'm sure I needn't," said the poor fellow, who hadn't the strength to be

over-punctilious. So in a very few moments his visitor was ushered up to

his bedside. He saw before him a handsome, middle-aged blonde woman,

stout of figure, and dressed in the height of the fashion, who displayed

no other embarrassment than such as was easily explained by the loss of

breath consequent on the ascent of six flights of stairs.

"Do you remember me?" she asked, taking the young man's hand.

He lay back on his pillow, and looked at her. "You used to be my

aunt,--my aunt Maria," he said.

"I'm your aunt Maria still," she answered. "It's very good of you not to

have forgotten me."

"It's very good of you not to have forgotten _me_," said Mason, in a

tone which betrayed a deeper feeling than the wish to return a civil

speech.

"Dear me, you've had the war and a hundred dreadful things. I've been

living in Europe, you know. Since my return I've been living in the

country, in your uncle's old house on the river, of which the lease had

just expired when I came home. I came to town yesterday on business, and

accidentally heard of your condition and your whereabouts. I knew you'd

gone into the army, and I had been wondering a dozen times what had

become of you, and whether you wouldn't turn up now that the war's at

last over. Of course I didn't lose a moment in coming to you. I'm _so_

sorry for you." Mrs. Mason looked about her for a seat. The chairs were

encumbered with odds and ends belonging to her nephew's wardrobe and to

his equipment, and with the remnants of his last repast. The good lady

surveyed the scene with the beautiful mute irony of compassion.

The young man lay watching her comely face in delicious submission to

whatever form of utterance this feeling might take. "You're the first

woman--to call a woman--I've seen in I don't know how many months," he

said, contrasting her appearance with that of his room, and reading her

thoughts.

"I should suppose so. I mean to be as good as a dozen." She

disembarrassed one of the chairs, and brought it to the bed. Then,

seating herself, she ungloved one of her hands, and laid it softly on

the young man's wrist. "What a great full-grown young fellow you've

become!" she pursued. "Now, tell me, are you very ill?"

"You must ask the doctor," said Mason. "I actually don't know. I'm

extremely uncomfortable, but I suppose it's partly my circumstances."

"I've no doubt it's more than half your circumstances. I've seen the

doctor. Mrs. Van Zandt is an old friend of mine; and when I come to

town, I always go to see her. It was from her I learned this morning

that you were here in this state. We had begun by rejoicing over the new

prospects of peace; and from that, of course, we had got to lamenting

the numbers of young men who are to enter upon it with lost limbs and

shattered health. It happened that Mrs. Van Zandt mentioned several of

her husband's patients as examples, and yourself among the number. You

were an excellent young man, miserably sick, without family or friends,

and with no asylum but a suffocating little closet in a noisy hotel. You

may imagine that I pricked up my ears, and asked your baptismal name.

Dr. Van Zandt came in, and told me. Your name is luckily an uncommon

one; it's absurd to suppose that there could be two Ferdinand Masons. In

short, I felt that you were my husband's brother's child, and that at

last I too might have my little turn at hero-nursing. The little that

the Doctor knew of your history agreed with the little that I knew,

though I confess I was sorry to hear that you had never spoken of our

relationship. But why should you? At all events you've got to

acknowledge it now. I regret your not having said something about it

before, only because the Doctor might have brought us together a month

ago, and you would now have been well."

"It will take me more than a month to get well," said Mason, feeling

that, if Mrs. Mason was meaning to exert herself on his behalf, she

should know the real state of the case. "I never spoke of you, because I

had quite lost sight of you. I fancied you were still in Europe; and

indeed," he added, after a moment's hesitation, "I heard that you had

married again."

"Of course you did," said Mrs. Mason, placidly. "I used to hear it once

a month myself. But I had a much better right to fancy you married.

Thank Heaven, however, there's nothing of that sort between us. We can

each do as we please. I promise to cure you in a month, in spite of

yourself."

"What's your remedy?" asked the young man, with a smile very courteous,

considering how sceptical it was.

"My first remedy is to take you out of this horrible hole. I talked it

all over with Dr. Van Zandt. He says you must get into the country. Why,

my dear boy, this is enough to kill you outright,--one Broadway outside

of your window and another outside of your door! Listen to me. My house

is directly on the river, and only two hours' journey by rail. You know

I've no children. My only companion is my niece, Caroline Hofmann. You

shall come and stay with us until you are as strong as you need be,--if

it takes a dozen years. You shall have sweet, cool air, and proper food,

and decent attendance, and the devotion of a sensible woman. I shall not

listen to a word of objection. You shall do as you please, get up when

you please, dine when you please, go to bed when you please, and say

what you please. I shall ask nothing of you but to let yourself be very

dearly cared for. Do you remember how, when you were a boy at school,

after your father's death, you were taken with measles, and your uncle

had you brought to our own house? I helped to nurse you myself, and I

remember what nice manners you had in the very midst of your measles.

Your uncle was very fond of you; and if he had had any considerable

property of his own, I know he would have remembered you in his will.

But, of course, he couldn't leave away his wife's money. What I wish to

do for you is a very small part of what he would have done, if he had

only lived, and heard of your gallantry and your sufferings. So it's

settled. I shall go home this afternoon. To-morrow morning I shall

despatch my man-servant to you with instructions. He's an Englishman. He

thoroughly knows his business, and he will put up your things, and save

you every particle of trouble. You've only to let yourself be dressed,

and driven to the train. I shall, of course, meet you at your journey's

end. Now don't tell me you're not strong enough."

"I feel stronger at this moment than I've felt in a dozen weeks," said

Mason. "It's useless for me to attempt to thank you."

"Quite useless. I shouldn't listen to you. And I suppose," added Mrs.

Mason, looking over the bare walls and scanty furniture of the room,

"you pay a fabulous price for this bower of bliss. Do you need money?"

The young man shook his head.

"Very well then," resumed Mrs. Mason, conclusively, "from this moment

you're in my hands."

The young man lay speechless from the very fulness of his heart; but he

strove by the pressure of his fingers to give her some assurance of his

gratitude. His companion rose, and lingered beside him, drawing on her

glove, and smiling quietly with the look of a long-baffled

philanthropist who has at last discovered a subject of infinite

capacity. Poor Ferdinand's weary visage reflected her smile. Finally,

after the lapse of years, he too was being cared for. He let his head

sink into the pillow, and silently inhaled the perfume of her sober

elegance and her cordial good-nature. He felt like taking her dress in

his hand, and asking her not to leave him,--now that solitude

would be bitter. His eyes, I suppose, betrayed this touching

apprehension,--doubly touching in a war-wasted young officer. As she

prepared to bid him farewell, Mrs. Mason stooped, and kissed his

forehead. He listened to the rustle of her dress across the carpet, to

the gentle closing of the door, and to her retreating footsteps. And

then, giving way to his weakness, he put his hands to his face, and

cried like a homesick schoolboy. He had been reminded of the exquisite

side of life.

Matters went forward as Mrs. Mason had arranged them. At six o'clock on

the following evening Ferdinand found himself deposited at one of the

way stations of the Hudson River Railroad, exhausted by his journey, and

yet excited at the prospect of its drawing to a close. Mrs. Mason was in

waiting in a low basket-phaeton, with a magazine of cushions and

wrappings. Ferdinand transferred himself to her side, and they drove

rapidly homeward. Mrs. Mason's house was a cottage of liberal make, with

a circular lawn, a sinuous avenue, and a well-grown plantation of

shrubbery. As the phaeton drew up before the porch, a young lady

appeared in the doorway. Mason will be forgiven if he considered himself

presented _ex officio_, as I may say, to this young lady. Before he

really knew it, and in the absence of the servant, who, under Mrs.

Mason's directions, was busy in the background with his trunk, he had

availed himself of her proffered arm, and had allowed her to assist him

through the porch, across the hall, and into the parlor, where she

graciously consigned him to a sofa which, for his especial use, she had

caused to be wheeled up before a fire kindled for his especial comfort.

He was unable, however, to take advantage of her good offices. Prudence

dictated that without further delay he should betake himself to his

room.

On the morning after his arrival he got up early, and made an attempt to

be present at breakfast; but his strength failed him, and he was obliged

to dress at his leisure, and content himself with a simple transition

from his bed to his arm-chair. The chamber assigned him was designedly

on the ground-floor, so that he was spared the trouble of measuring his

strength with the staircase,--a charming room, brightly carpeted and

upholstered, and marked by a certain fastidious freshness which betrayed

the uncontested dominion of women. It had a broad high window, draped in

chintz and crisp muslin and opening upon the greensward of the lawn. At

this window, wrapped in his dressing-gown, and lost in the embrace of

the most unresisting of arm-chairs, he slowly discussed his simple

repast. Before long his hostess made her appearance on the lawn outside

the window. As this quarter of the house was covered with warm sunshine,

Mason ventured to open the window and talk to her, while she stood out

on the grass beneath her parasol.

"It's time to think of your physician," she said. "You shall choose for

yourself. The great physician here is Dr. Gregory, a gentleman of the

old school. We have had him but once, for my niece and I have the health

of a couple of dairy-maids. On that one occasion he--well, he made a

fool of himself. His practice is among the 'old families,' and he only

knows how to treat certain old-fashioned, obsolete complaints. Anything

brought about by the war would be quite out of his range. And then he

vacillates, and talks about his own maladies _à lui_. And, to tell the

truth, we had a little repartee which makes our relations somewhat

ambiguous."

"I see he would never do," said Mason, laughing. "But he's not your only

physician?"

"No: there is a young man, a newcomer, a Dr. Knight, whom I don't know,

but of whom I've heard very good things. I confess that I have a

prejudice in favor of the young men. Dr. Knight has a position to

establish, and I suppose he's likely to be especially attentive and

careful. I believe, moreover, that he's been an army surgeon."

"I knew a man of his name," said Mason. "I wonder if this is he. His

name was Horace Knight,--a light-haired, near-sighted man."

"I don't know," said Mrs. Mason; "perhaps Caroline knows." She retreated

a few steps, and called to an upper window: "Caroline, what's Dr.

Knight's first name?"

Mason listened to Miss Hofmann's answer,--"I haven't the least idea."

"Is it Horace?"

"I don't know."

"Is he light or dark?"

"I've never seen him."

"Is he near-sighted?"

"How in the world should I know?"

"I fancy he's as good as any one," said Ferdinand. "With you, my dear

aunt, what does the doctor matter?"

Mrs. Mason accordingly sent for Dr. Knight, who, on arrival, turned out

to be her nephew's old acquaintance. Although the young men had been

united by no greater intimacy than the superficial comradeship resulting

from a winter in neighboring quarters, they were very well pleased to

come together again. Horace Knight was a young man of good birth, good

looks, good faculties, and good intentions, who, after a three years'

practice of surgery in the army, had undertaken to push his fortune in

Mrs. Mason's neighborhood. His mother, a widow with a small income, had

recently removed to the country for economy, and her son had been

unwilling to leave her to live alone. The adjacent country, moreover,

offered a promising field for a man of energy,--a field well stocked

with large families of easy income and of those conservative habits

which lead people to make much of the cares of a physician. The local

practitioner had survived the glory of his prime, and was not, perhaps,

entirely guiltless of Mrs. Mason's charge, that he had not kept up with

the progress of the "new diseases." The world, in fact, was getting too

new for him, as well as for his old patients. He had had money invested

in the South,--precious sources of revenue, which the war had swallowed

up at a gulp; he had grown frightened and nervous and querulous; he had

lost his presence of mind and his spectacles in several important

conjunctures; he had been repeatedly and distinctly fallible; a vague

dissatisfaction pervaded the breasts of his patrons; he was without

competitors: in short, fortune was propitious to Dr. Knight. Mason

remembered the young physician only as a good-humored, intelligent

companion; but he soon had reason to believe that his medical skill

would leave nothing to be desired. He arrived rapidly at a clear

understanding of Ferdinand's case; he asked intelligent questions, and

gave simple and definite instructions. The disorder was deeply seated

and virulent, but there was no apparent reason why unflinching care and

prudence should not subdue it.

"Your strength is very much reduced," he said, as he took his hat and

gloves to go; "but I should say you had an excellent constitution. It

seems to me, however,--if you will pardon me for saying so,--to be

partly your own fault that you have fallen so low. You have opposed no

resistance; you haven't cared to get well."

"I confess that I haven't,--particularly. But I don't see how you should

know it."

"Why it's obvious."

"Well, it was natural enough. Until Mrs. Mason discovered me, I hadn't a

friend in the world. I had become demoralized by solitude. I had almost

forgotten the difference between sickness and health. I had nothing

before my eyes to remind me in tangible form of that great mass of

common human interests for the sake of which--under whatever name he may

disguise the impulse--a man continues in health and recovers from

disease. I had forgotten that I ever cared for books or ideas, or

anything but the preservation of my miserable carcass. My carcass had

become quite too miserable to be an object worth living for. I was

losing time and money at an appalling rate; I was getting worse rather

than better; and I therefore gave up resistance. It seemed better to die

easy than to die hard. I put it all in the past tense, because within

these three days I've become quite another man."

"I wish to Heaven I could have heard of you," said Knight. "I would have

made you come home with me, if I could have done nothing else. It was

certainly not a rose-colored prospect; but what do you say now?" he

continued, looking around the room. "I should say that at the present

moment rose-color was the prevailing hue."

Mason assented with an eloquent smile.

"I congratulate you from my heart. Mrs. Mason--if you don't mind my

speaking of her--is so thoroughly (and, I should suppose, incorrigibly)

good-natured, that it's quite a surprise to find her extremely

sensible."

"Yes; and so resolute and sensible in her better moments," said

Ferdinand, "that it's quite a surprise to find her good-natured. She's a

fine woman."

"But I should say that your especial blessing was your servant. He looks

as if he had come out of an English novel."

"My especial blessing! You haven't seen Miss Hofmann, then?"

"Yes: I met her in the hall. She looks as if she had come out of an

American novel. I don't know that that's great praise; but, at all

events, I make her come out of it."

"You're bound in honor, then," said Mason, laughing, "to put her into

another."

Mason's conviction of his newly made happiness needed no enforcement at

the Doctor's hands. He felt that it would be his own fault if these were

not among the most delightful days of his life. He resolved to give

himself up without stint to his impressions,--utterly to vegetate. His

illness alone would have been a sufficient excuse for a long term of

intellectual laxity; but Mason had other good reasons besides. For the

past three years he had been stretched without intermission on the rack

of duty. Although constantly exposed to hard service, it had been his

fortune never to receive a serious wound; and, until his health broke

down, he had taken fewer holidays than any officer I ever heard of. With

an abundance of a certain kind of equanimity and self-control,--a

faculty of ready self-adaptation to the accomplished fact, in any

direction,--he was yet in his innermost soul a singularly nervous,

over-scrupulous person. On the few occasions when he had been absent

from the scene of his military duties, although duly authorized and

warranted in the act, he had suffered so acutely from the apprehension

that something was happening, or was about to happen, which not to have

witnessed or to have had a hand in would be matter of eternal

mortification, that he can be barely said to have enjoyed his

recreation. The sense of lost time was, moreover, his perpetual

bugbear,--the feeling that precious hours were now fleeting uncounted,

which in more congenial labors would suffice almost for the building of

a monument more lasting than brass. This feeling he strove to propitiate

as much as possible by assiduous reading and study in the interval of

his actual occupations. I cite the fact merely as an evidence of the

uninterrupted austerity of his life for a long time before he fell sick.

I might triple this period, indeed, by a glance at his college years,

and at certain busy months which intervened between this close of his

youth and the opening of the war. Mason had always worked. He was fond

of work to begin with; and, in addition, the complete absence of family

ties had allowed him to follow his tastes without obstruction or

diversion. This circumstance had been at once a great gain to him and a

serious loss. He reached his twenty-seventh year a very accomplished

scholar, as scholars go, but a great dunce in certain social matters. He

was quite ignorant of all those lighter, more evanescent forms of

conviviality attached to being somebody's son, brother, or cousin. At

last, however, as he reminded himself, he was to discover what it was to

be the nephew of somebody's husband. Mrs. Mason was to teach him the

meaning of the adjective _domestic_. It would have been hard to learn it

in a pleasanter way. Mason felt that he was to learn something from his

very idleness, and that he would leave the house a wiser as well as a

better man. It became probable, thanks to that quickening of the

faculties which accompanies the dawning of a sincere and rational

attachment, that in this last respect he would not be disappointed. Very

few days sufficed to reveal to him the many excellent qualities of his

hostess,--her warm capacious heart, her fairness of mind, her good

temper, her good taste, her vast fund of experience and of reminiscence,

and, indeed, more than all, a certain passionate devotedness, to which

fortune, in leaving her a childless widow, had done but scant justice.

The two accordingly established a friendship,--a friendship that

promised as well for the happiness of each as any that ever undertook to

meddle with happiness. If I were telling my story from Mrs. Mason's

point of view, I take it that I might make a very good thing of the

statement that this lady had deliberately and solemnly conferred her

affection upon my hero; but I am compelled to let it stand in this

simple shape. Excellent, charming person that she was, she had every

right to the rich satisfaction which belonged to a liberal--yet not too

liberal--estimate of her guest. She had divined him,--so much the better

for her. That it was very much the better for him is obviously one of

the elementary facts of my narrative; a fact of which Mason became so

rapidly and profoundly sensible, that he was soon able to dismiss it

from his thoughts to his life,--its proper sphere.

In the space of ten days, then, most of the nebulous impressions evoked

by change of scene had gathered into substantial form. Others, however,

were still in the nebulous state,--diffusing a gentle light upon

Ferdinand's path. Chief among these was the mild radiance of which Miss

Hofmann was the centre. For three days after his arrival Mason had been

confined to his room by the aggravation of his condition consequent upon

his journey. It was not till the fourth day, therefore, that he was able

to renew the acquaintance so auspiciously commenced. When at last, at

dinner-time, he reappeared in the drawing-room, Miss Hofmann greeted him

almost as an old friend. Mason had already discovered that she was young

and gracious; he now rapidly advanced to the conclusion that she was

uncommonly pretty. Before dinner was over, he had made up his mind that

she was neither more nor less than beautiful. Mrs. Mason had found time

to give him a full account of her life. She had lost her mother in

infancy, and had been adopted by her aunt in the early years of this

lady's widowhood. Her father was a man of evil habits,--a drunkard, a

gambler, and a rake, outlawed from decent society. His only dealings

with his daughter were to write her every month or two a begging letter,

she being in possession of her mother's property. Mrs. Mason had taken

her niece to Europe, and given her every advantage. She had had an

expensive education; she had travelled; she had gone into the world; she

had been presented, like a good republican, to no less than three

European sovereigns; she had been admired; she had had half a dozen

offers of marriage to her aunt's knowledge, and others, perhaps, of

which she was ignorant, and had refused them all. She was now twenty-six

years of age, beautiful, accomplished, and _au mieux_ with her bankers.

She was an excellent girl, with a will of her own. "I'm very fond of

her," Mrs. Mason declared, with her habitual frankness; "and I suppose

she's equally fond of me; but we long ago gave up all idea of playing at

mother and daughter. We have never had a disagreement since she was

fifteen years old; but we have never had an agreement either. Caroline

is no sentimentalist. She's honest, good-tempered, and perfectly

discerning. She foresaw that we were still to spend a number of years

together, and she wisely declined at the outset to affect a range of

feelings that wouldn't stand the wear and tear of time. She knew that

she would make a poor daughter, and she contented herself with being a

good niece. A capital niece she is. In fact we're almost sisters. There

are moments when I feel as if she were ten years older than I, and as if

it were absurd in me to attempt to interfere with her life. I never do.

She has it quite in her own hands. My attitude is little more than a

state of affectionate curiosity as to what she will do with it. Of

course she'll marry, sooner or later; but I'm curious to see the man of

her choice. In Europe, you know, girls have no acquaintances but such as

they share with their parents and guardians; and in that way I know most

of the gentlemen who have tried to make themselves acceptable to my

niece. There were some excellent young men in the number; but there was

not one--or, rather, there was but one--for whom Caroline cared a straw.

That one she loved, I believe; but they had a quarrel, and she lost him.

She's very discreet and conciliating. I'm sure no girl ever before got

rid of half a dozen suitors with so little offence. Ah, she's a dear,

good girl!" Mrs. Mason pursued. "She's saved me a world of trouble in my

day. And when I think what she might have been, with her beauty, and

what not! She has kept all her suitors as friends. There are two of them

who write to her still. She doesn't answer their letters; but once in a

while she meets them, and thanks them for writing, and that contents

them. The others are married, and Caroline remains single. I take for

granted it won't last forever. Still, although she's _not_ a

sentimentalist, she'll not marry a man she doesn't care for, merely

because she's growing old. Indeed, it's only the sentimental girls, to

my belief, that do that. They covet a man for his money or his looks,

and then give the feeling some fine name. But there's one thing, Mr.

Ferdinand," added Mrs. Mason, at the close of these remarks, "you will

be so good as not to fall in love with my niece. I can assure you that

she'll not fall in love with you, and a hopeless passion will not hasten

your recovery. Caroline is a charming girl. You can live with her very

well without that. She's good for common daylight, and you'll have no

need of wax-candles and ecstasies."

"Be reassured," said Ferdinand, laughing. "I'm quite too attentive to

myself at present to think of any one else. Miss Hofmann might be dying

for a glance of my eye, and I shouldn't hesitate to sacrifice her. It

takes more than half a man to fall in love."

At the end of ten days summer had fairly set in; and Mason found it

possible, and indeed profitable, to spend a large portion of his time in

the open air. He was unable either to ride or to walk; and the only form

of exercise which he found practicable was an occasional drive in Mrs.

Mason's phaeton. On these occasions Mrs. Mason was his habitual

companion. The neighborhood offered an interminable succession of

beautiful drives; and poor Ferdinand took a truly exquisite pleasure in

reclining idly upon a pile of cushions, warmly clad, empty-handed,

silent, with only his eyes in motion, and rolling rapidly between

fragrant hedges and springing crops, and beside the outskirts of woods,

and along the heights which overlooked the river. Detested war was over,

and all nature had ratified the peace. Mason used to gaze up into the

cloudless sky until his eyes began to water, and you would have actually

supposed he was shedding sentimental tears. Besides these comfortable

drives with his hostess, Mason had adopted another method of inhaling

the sunshine. He used frequently to spend several hours at a time on a

veranda beside the house, sheltered from the observation of visitors.

Here, with an arm-chair and a footstool, a cigar and half a dozen

volumes of novels, to say nothing of the society of either of the

ladies, and sometimes of both, he suffered the mornings to pass

unmeasured and uncounted. The chief incident of these mornings was the

Doctor's visit, in which, of course, there was a strong element of

prose,--and very good prose, as I may add, for the Doctor was turning

out an excellent fellow. But, for the rest, time unrolled itself like a

gentle strain of music. Mason knew so little, from direct observation,

of the _vie intime_ of elegant, intelligent women, that their habits,

their manners, their household motions, their principles, possessed in

his view all the charm of a spectacle,--a spectacle which he

contemplated with the indolence of an invalid, the sympathy of a man of

taste, and a little of the awkwardness which women gladly allow, and

indeed provoke, in a soldier, for the pleasure of forgiving it. It was a

very simple matter to Miss Hofmann that she should be dressed in fresh

crisp muslin, that her hands should be white and her attitudes

felicitous; she had long since made her peace with these things. But to

Mason, who was familiar only with books and men, they were objects of

constant, half-dreamy contemplation. He would sit for half an hour at

once, with a book on his knees and the pages unturned, scrutinizing with

ingenious indirectness the simple mass of colors and contours which made

up the physical personality of Miss Hofmann. There was no question as to

her beauty, or as to its being a warm, sympathetic beauty, and not the

cold perfection of poetry. She was the least bit taller than most women,

and neither stout nor the reverse. Her hair was of a dark and lustrous

brown, turning almost to black, and lending itself readily to those

multitudinous ringlets which were then in fashion. Her forehead was

broad, open, and serene; and her eyes of that deep and clear sea-green

that you may observe of a summer's afternoon, when the declining sun

shines through the rising of a wave. Her complexion was the color of

perfect health. These, with her full, mild lips, her generous and

flexible figure, her magnificent hands, were charms enough to occupy

Mason's attention, and it was but seldom that he allowed it to be

diverted. Mrs. Mason was frequently called away by her household cares,

but Miss Hofmann's time was apparently quite her own. Nevertheless, it

came into Ferdinand's head one day, that she gave him her company only

from a sense of duty, and when, according to his wont, he had allowed

this impression to ripen in his mind, he ventured to assure her that,

much as he valued her society, he should be sorry to believe that her

gracious bestowal of it interfered with more profitable occupations.

"I'm no companion," he said. "I don't pretend to be one. I sit here deaf

and dumb, and blind and halt, patiently waiting to be healed,--waiting

till this vagabond Nature of ours strolls my way, and brushes me with

the hem of her garment."

"I find you very good company," Miss Hofmann replied on this occasion.

"What do you take me for? The hero of a hundred fights, a young man who

has been reduced to a shadow in the service of his country,--I should be

very fastidious if I asked for anything better."

"O, if it's on theory!" said Mason. And, in spite of Miss Hofmann's

protest, he continued to assume that it was on theory that he was not

intolerable. But she remained true to her post, and with a sort of

placid inveteracy which seemed to the young man to betray either a great

deal of indifference or a great deal of self-command. "She thinks I'm

stupid," he said to himself. "Of course she thinks I'm stupid. How

should she think otherwise? She and her aunt have talked me over. Mrs.

Mason has enumerated my virtues, and Miss Hofmann has added them up:

total, a well-meaning bore. She has armed herself with patience. I must

say it becomes her very well." Nothing was more natural, however, than

that Mason should exaggerate the effect of his social incapacity. His

remarks were desultory, but not infrequent; often trivial, but always

good-humored and informal. The intervals of silence, indeed, which

enlivened his conversation with Miss Hofmann, might easily have been

taken for the confident pauses in the talk of old friends.

Once in a while Miss Hofmann would sit down at the piano and play to

him. The veranda communicated with the little sitting-room by means of

a long window, one side of which stood open. Mason would move his chair

to this aperture, so that he might see the music as well as hear it.

Seated at the instrument, at the farther end of the half-darkened room,

with her figure in half-profile, and her features, her movements, the

color of her dress, but half defined in the cool obscurity, Miss Hofmann

would discourse infinite melody. Mason's eyes rested awhile on the vague

white folds of her dress, on the heavy convolutions of her hair, and the

gentle movement of her head in sympathy with the music. Then a single

glance in the other direction revealed another picture,--the dazzling

midday sky, the close-cropped lawn, lying almost black in its light, and

the patient, round-backed gardener, in white shirt-sleeves, clipping the

hedge or rolling the gravel. One morning, what with the music, the

light, the heat, and the fragrance of the flowers,--from the perfect

equilibrium of his senses, as it were,--Mason manfully went to sleep. On

waking he found that he had slept an hour, and that the sun had invaded

the veranda. The music had ceased; but on looking into the parlor he saw

Miss Hofmann still at the piano. A gentleman was leaning on the

instrument with his back toward the window, intercepting her face. Mason

sat for some moments, hardly sensible, at first, of his transition to

consciousness, languidly guessing at her companion's identity. In a

short time his observation was quickened by the fact that the picture

before him was animated by no sound of voices. The silence was

unnatural, or, at the least, disagreeable. Mason moved his chair, and

the gentleman looked round. The gentleman was Horace Knight. The Doctor

called out, "Good morning!" from his place, and finished his

conversation with Miss Hofmann before coming out to his patient. When he

moved away from the piano, Mason saw the reason of his friends' silence.

Miss Hofmann had been trying to decipher a difficult piece of music, the

Doctor had been trying to assist her, and they had both been brought to

a stop.

"What a clever fellow he is!" thought Mason. "There he stands, rattling

off musical terms as if he had never thought of anything else. And yet,

when he talks medicine, it's impossible to talk more to the point."

Mason continued to be very well satisfied with Knight's intelligence of

his case, and with his treatment of it. He had been in the country now

for three weeks, and he would hesitate, indeed, to affirm that he felt

materially better; but he felt more comfortable. There were moments when

he feared to push the inquiry as to his real improvement, because he had

a sickening apprehension that he would discover that in one or two

important particulars he was worse. In the course of time he imparted

these fears to his physician. "But I may be mistaken," he added, "and

for this reason. During the last fortnight I have become much more

sensible of my condition than while I was in town. I then accepted each

additional symptom as a matter of course. The more the better, I

thought. But now I expect them to give an account of themselves. Now I

have a positive wish to recover."

Dr. Knight looked at his patient for a moment curiously. "You are

right," he said; "a little impatience is a very good thing."

"O, I'm not impatient. I'm patient to a most ridiculous extent. I allow

myself a good six months, at the very least."

"That is certainly not unreasonable," said Knight. "And will you allow

me a question? Do you intend to spend those six months in this place?"

"I'm unable to answer you. I suppose I shall finish the summer here,

unless the summer finishes me. Mrs. Mason will hear of nothing else. In

September I hope to be well enough to go back to town, even if I'm not

well enough to think of work. What do you advise?"

"I advise you to put away all thoughts of work. That is imperative.

Haven't you been at work all your life long? Can't you spare a pitiful

little twelve-month to health and idleness and pleasure?"

"Ah, pleasure, pleasure!" said Mason, ironically.

"Yes, pleasure," said the Doctor. "What has she done to you that you

should speak of her in that manner?"

"O, she bothers me," said Mason.

"You are very fastidious. It's better to be bothered by pleasure than by

pain."

"I don't deny it. But there is a way of being indifferent to pain. I

don't mean to say that I have found it out, but in the course of my

illness I have caught a glimpse of it. But it's beyond my strength to be

indifferent to pleasure. In two words, I'm afraid of dying of kindness."

"O, nonsense!"

"Yes, it's nonsense; and yet it's not. There would be nothing miraculous

in my not getting well."

"It will be your fault if you don't. It will prove that you're fonder of

sickness than health, and that you're not fit company for sensible

mortals. Shall I tell you?" continued the Doctor, after a moment's

hesitation. "When I knew you in the army, I always found you a step

beyond my comprehension. You took things too hard. You had scruples and

doubts about everything. And on top of it all you were devoured with the

mania of appearing to take things easily and to be perfectly

indifferent. You played your part very well, but you must do me the

justice to confess that it _was_ a part."

"I hardly know whether that's a compliment or an impertinence. I hope,

at least, that you don't mean to accuse me of playing a part at the

present moment."

"On the contrary. I'm your physician; you're frank."

"It's not because you're my physician that I'm frank," said Mason. "I

shouldn't think of burdening you in that capacity with my miserable

caprices and fancies;" and Ferdinand paused a moment. "You're a man!" he

pursued, laying his hand on his companion's arm. "There's nothing here

but women, Heaven reward them! I'm saturated with whispers and perfumes

and smiles, and the rustling of dresses. It takes a man to understand a

man."

"It takes more than a man to understand you, my dear Mason," said

Knight, with a kindly smile. "But I listen."

Mason remained silent, leaning back in his chair, with his eyes

wandering slowly over the wide patch of sky disclosed by the window, and

his hands languidly folded on his knees. The Doctor examined him with a

look half amused, half perplexed. But at last his face grew quite sober,

and he contracted his brow. He placed his hand on Mason's arm and shook

it gently, while Ferdinand met his gaze. The Doctor frowned, and, as he

did so, his companion's mouth expanded into a placid smile. "If you

don't get well," said Knight,--"if you don't get well--" and he paused.

"What will be the consequences?" asked Ferdinand, still smiling.

"I shall hate you," said Knight, half smiling, too.

Mason broke into a laugh. "What shall I care for that?"

"I shall tell people that you were a poor, spiritless fellow,--that you

are no loss."

"I give you leave," said Ferdinand.

The Doctor got up. "I don't like obstinate patients," he said.

Ferdinand burst into a long, loud laugh, which ended in a fit of

coughing.

"I'm getting too amusing," said Knight; "I must go."

"Nay, laugh and grow fat," cried Ferdinand. "I promise to get well." But

that evening, at least, he was no better, as it turned out, for his

momentary exhilaration. Before turning in for the night, he went into

the drawing-room to spend half an hour with the ladies. The room was

empty, but the lamp was lighted, and he sat down by the table and read

a chapter in a novel. He felt excited, light-headed, light-hearted,

half-intoxicated, as if he had been drinking strong coffee. He put down

his book, and went over to the mantelpiece, above which hung a mirror,

and looked at the reflection of his face. For almost the first time in

his life he examined his features, and wondered if he were good-looking.

He was able to conclude only that he looked very thin and pale, and

utterly unfit for the business of life. At last he heard an opening of

doors overhead, and a rustling of voluminous skirts on the stairs. Mrs.

Mason came in, fresh from the hands of her maid, and dressed for a

party.

"And is Miss Hofmann going?" asked Mason. He felt that his heart was

beating, and that he hoped Mrs. Mason would say no. His momentary sense

of strength, the mellow lamp-light, the open piano, and the absence, of

the excellent woman before him, struck him as so many reasons for her

remaining at home. But the sound of the young lady's descent upon the

stairs was an affirmative to his question. She forthwith appeared upon

the threshold, dressed in crape of a kind of violent blue, with

desultory clusters of white roses. For some ten minutes Mason had the

pleasure of being witness of that series of pretty movements and

preparations with which women in full dress beguile the interval before

their carriage is announced; their glances at the mirror, their slow

assumption of their gloves, their mutual revisions and felicitations.

"Isn't she lovely?" said Miss Hofmann to the young man, nodding at her

aunt, who looked every inch the handsome woman that she was.

"Lovely, lovely, lovely!" said Ferdinand, so emphatically, that Miss

Hofmann transferred her glance to him; while Mrs. Mason good-humoredly

turned her back, and Caroline saw that Mason was engaged in a survey of

her own person.

Miss Hofmann smiled discreetly. "I wish very much you might come," she

said.

"I shall go to bed," answered Ferdinand, simply.

"Well, that's much better. We shall go to bed at two o'clock. Meanwhile

I shall caper about the rooms to the sound of a piano and fiddle, and

Aunt Maria will sit against the wall with her toes tucked under a chair.

Such is life!"

"You'll dance then," said Mason.

"I shall dance. Dr. Knight has invited me."

"Does he dance well, Caroline?" asked Mrs. Mason.

"That remains to be seen. I have a strong impression that he does not."

"Why?" asked Ferdinand.

"He does so many other things well."

"That's no reason," said Mrs. Mason. "Do you dance, Ferdinand?"

Ferdinand shook his head.

"I like a man to dance," said Caroline, "and yet I like him not to

dance."

"That's a very womanish speech, my dear," said Mrs. Mason.

"I suppose it is. It's inspired by my white gloves and my low dress, and

my roses. When once a woman gets on such things, Colonel Mason, expect

nothing but nonsense.--Aunt Maria," the young lady continued, "will you

button my glove?"

"Let me do it," said Ferdinand. "Your aunt has her gloves on."

"Thank you." And Miss Hofmann extended a long, white arm, and drew back

with her other hand the bracelet from her wrist. Her glove had three

buttons, and Mason performed the operation with great deliberation and

neatness.

"And now," said he, gravely, "I hear the carriage. You want me to put on

your shawl."

"If you please,"--Miss Hofmann passed her full white drapery into his

hands, and then turned about her fair shoulders. Mason solemnly covered

them, while the waiting-maid, who had come in, performed the same

service for the elder lady.

"Good by," said the latter, giving him her hand. "You're not to come out

into the air." And Mrs. Mason, attended by her maid, transferred herself

to the carriage. Miss Hofmann gathered up her loveliness, and prepared

to follow. Ferdinand stood leaning against the parlor door, watching

her; and as she rustled past him she nodded farewell with a silent

smile. A characteristic smile, Mason thought it,--a smile in which there

was no expectation of triumph and no affectation of reluctance, but just

the faintest suggestion of perfectly good-humored resignation. Mason

went to the window and saw the carriage roll away with its lighted

lamps, and then stood looking out into the darkness. The sky was cloudy.

As he turned away the maid-servant came in, and took from the table a

pair of rejected gloves. "I hope you're feeling better, sir," she said,

politely.

"Thank you, I think I am."

"It's a pity you couldn't have gone with the ladies."

"I'm not well enough yet to think of such things," said Mason, trying to

smile. But as he walked across the floor he felt himself attacked by a

sudden sensation, which cannot be better described than as a general

collapse. He felt dizzy, faint, and sick. His head swam and his knees

trembled. "I'm ill," he said, sitting down on the sofa; "you must call

William."

William speedily arrived, and conducted the young man to his room. "What

on earth had you been doing, sir?" asked this most irreproachable of

serving-men, as he helped him to undress.

Ferdinand was silent a moment. "I had been putting on Miss Hofmann's

shawl," he said.

"Is that all, sir?"

"And I had been buttoning her glove."

"Well, sir, you must be very prudent."

"So it appears," said Ferdinand.

He slept soundly, however, and the next morning was the better for it.

"I'm certainly better," he said to himself, as he slowly proceeded to

his toilet. "A month ago such an attack as that of last evening would

have effectually banished sleep. Courage, then. The Devil isn't dead,

but he's dying."

In the afternoon he received a visit from Horace Knight. "So you danced

last evening at Mrs. Bradshaw's," he said to his friend.

"Yes, I danced. It's a great piece of frivolity for a man in my

position; but I thought there would be no harm in doing it just once, to

show them I know how. My abstinence in future will tell the better. Your

ladies were there. I danced with Miss Hofmann. She was dressed in blue,

and she was the most beautiful woman in the room. Every one was talking

about it."

"I saw her," said Mason, "before she went off."

"You should have seen her there," said Knight. "The music, the

excitement, the spectators, and all that, bring out a woman's beauty."

"So I suppose," said Ferdinand.

"What strikes me," pursued the Doctor, "is her--what shall I call

it?--her vitality, her quiet buoyancy. Of course, you didn't see her

when she came home? If you had, you would have noticed, unless I'm very

much mistaken, that she was as fresh and elastic at two o'clock as she

had been at ten. While all the other women looked tired and jaded and

used up, she alone showed no signs of exhaustion. She was neither pale

nor flushed, but still light-footed, rosy, and erect. She's solid. You

see I can't help looking at such things as a physician. She has a

magnificent organization. Among all those other poor girls she seemed to

have something of the inviolable strength of a goddess;" and Knight smiled

frankly as he entered the region of eloquence. "She wears her artificial

roses and dew-drops as if she had gathered them on the mountain-tops,

instead of buying them in Broadway. She moves with long steps, her dress

rustles, and to a man of fancy it's the sound of Diana on the

forest-leaves."

Ferdinand nodded assent. "So you're a man of fancy," he said.

"Of course I am," said the Doctor.

Ferdinand was not inclined to question his friend's estimate of Miss

Hofmann, nor to weigh his words. They only served to confirm an

impression which was already strong in his own mind. Day by day he had

felt the growth of this impression. "He must be a strong man who would

approach her," he said to himself. "He must be as vigorous and elastic

as she herself, or in the progress of courtship she will leave him far

behind. He must be able to forget his lungs and his liver and his

digestion. To have broken down in his country's defence, even, will

avail him nothing. What is that to her? She needs a man who has defended

his country without breaking down,--a being complete, intact, well

seasoned, invulnerable. Then,--then," thought Ferdinand, "perhaps she

will consider him. Perhaps it will be to refuse him. Perhaps, like

Diana, to whom Knight compares her, she is meant to live alone. It's

certain, at least, that she is able to wait. She will be young at

forty-five. Women who are young at forty-five are perhaps not the most

interesting women. They are likely to have felt for nobody and for

nothing. But it's often less their own fault than that of the men and

women about them. This one at least can feel; the thing is to move her.

Her soul is an instrument of a hundred strings, only it takes a strong

hand to draw sound. Once really touched, they will reverberate for ever

and ever."

In fine, Mason was in love. It will be seen that his passion was not

arrogant nor uncompromising; but, on the contrary, patient, discreet,

and modest,--almost timid. For ten long days, the most memorable days of

his life,--days which, if he had kept a journal, would have been left

blank,--he held his tongue. He would have suffered anything rather than

reveal his emotions, or allow them to come accidentally to Miss

Hofmann's knowledge. He would cherish them in silence until he should

feel in all his sinews that he was himself again, and then he would open

his heart. Meanwhile he would be patient; he would be the most

irreproachable, the most austere, the most insignificant of

convalescents. He was as yet unfit to touch her, to look at her, to

speak to her. A man was not to go a wooing in his dressing-gown and

slippers.

There came a day, however, when, in spite of his high resolves,

Ferdinand came near losing his balance. Mrs. Mason had arranged with him

to drive in the phaeton after dinner. But it befell that, an hour before

the appointed time, she was sent for by a neighbor who had been taken

ill.

"But it's out of the question that you should lose your drive," said

Miss Hofmann, who brought him her aunt's apologies. "If you are still

disposed to go, I shall be happy to take the reins. I shall not be as

good company as Aunt Maria, but perhaps I shall be as good company as

Thomas." It was settled, accordingly, that Miss Hofmann should act as

her aunt's substitute, and at five o'clock the phaeton left the door.

The first half of their drive was passed in silence; and almost the

first words they exchanged were as they finally drew near to a space of

enclosed ground, beyond which, through the trees at its farther

extremity, they caught a glimpse of a turn in the river. Miss Hofmann

involuntarily pulled up. The sun had sunk low, and the cloudless western

sky glowed with rosy yellow. The trees which concealed the view flung

over the grass a great screen of shadow, which reached out into the

road. Between their scattered stems gleamed the broad, white current of

the Hudson. Our friends both knew the spot. Mason had seen it from a

boat, when one morning a gentleman in the neighborhood, thinking to do

him a kindness, had invited him to take a short sail; and with Miss

Hofmann it had long been a frequent resort.

"How beautiful!" she said, as the phaeton stopped.

"Yes, if it wasn't for those trees," said Ferdinand. "They conceal the

best part of the view."

"I should rather say they indicate it," answered his companion. "From

here they conceal it; but they suggest to you to make your way in, and

lose yourself behind them, and enjoy the prospect in privacy."

"But you can't take a vehicle in."

"No: there is only a footpath, although I have ridden in. One of these

days, when you're stronger, you must drive to this point, and get out,

and walk over to the bank."

Mason was silent a moment,--a moment during which he felt in his limbs

the tremor of a bold resolution. "I noticed the place the day I went out

on the water with Mr. McCarthy. I immediately marked it as my own. The

bank is quite high, and the trees make a little amphitheatre on its

summit. I think there's a bench."

"Yes, there are two benches," said Caroline.

"Suppose, then, we try it now," said Mason, with an effort.

"But you can never walk over that meadow. You see it's broken ground.

And, at all events, I can't consent to your going alone."

"That, madam," said Ferdinand, rising to his feet in the phaeton, "is a

piece of folly I should never think of proposing. Yonder is a house, and

in it there are people. Can't we drive thither, and place the horse in

their custody?"

"Nothing is more easy, if you insist upon it. The house is occupied by a

German family with a couple of children, who are old friends of mine.

When I come here on horseback they always clamor for 'coppers.' From

their little garden the walk is shorter."

So Miss Hofmann turned the horse toward the cottage, which stood at the

head of a lane, a few yards from the road. A little boy and girl, with

bare heads and bare feet,--the former members very white and the latter

very black,--came out to meet her. Caroline greeted them good-humoredly

in German. The girl, who was the elder, consented to watch the horse,

while the boy volunteered to show the visitors the shortest way to the

river. Mason reached the point in question without great fatigue, and

found a prospect which would have repaid even greater trouble. To the

right and to the left, a hundred feet below them, stretched the broad

channel of the seaward-shifting waters. In the distance rose the gentle

masses of the Catskills with all the intervening region vague and

neutral in the gathering twilight. A faint odor of coolness came up to

their faces from the stream below.

"You can sit down," said the little boy, doing the honors.

"Yes, Colonel, sit down," said Caroline. "You've already been on your

feet too much."

Ferdinand obediently seated himself, unable to deny that he was glad to

do so. Miss Hofmann released from her grasp the skirts which she had

gathered up in her passage from the phaeton, and strolled to the edge of

the cliff, where she stood for some moments talking with her little

guide. Mason could only hear that she was speaking German. After the

lapse of a few moments Miss Hofmann turned back, still talking--or

rather listening--to the child.

"He's very pretty," she said in French, as she stopped before Ferdinand.

Mason broke into a laugh. "To think," said he, "that that little

youngster should forbid us the use of two languages! Do you speak

French, my child?"

"No," said the boy, sturdily, "I speak German."

"Ah, there I can't follow you!"

The child stared a moment, and then replied, with pardonable

irrelevancy, "I'll show you the way down to the water."

"There I can't follow you either. I hope you'll not go, Miss Hofmann,"

added the young man, observing a movement on Caroline's part.

"Is it hard?" she asked of the child.

"No, it's easy."

"Will I tear my dress?"

The child shook his head; and Caroline descended the bank under his

guidance.

As some moments elapsed before she reappeared, Ferdinand ventured to the

edge of the cliff, and looked down. She was sitting on a rock on the

narrow margin of sand, with her hat in her lap, twisting the feather in

her fingers. In a few moments it seemed to Ferdinand that he caught the

tones of her voice, wafted upward as if she were gently singing. He

listened intently, and at last succeeded in distinguishing several

words; they were German. "Confound her German!" thought the young man.

Suddenly Miss Hofmann rose from her seat, and, after a short interval,

reappeared on the platform. "What did you find down there?" asked

Ferdinand, almost savagely.

"Nothing,--a little strip of a beach and a pile of stones."

"You _have_ torn your dress," said Mason.

Miss Hofmann surveyed her drapery. "Where, if you please?"

"There, in front." And Mason extended his walking-stick, and inserted it

into the injured fold of muslin. There was a certain graceless

_brusquerie_ in the movement which attracted Miss Hofmann's attention. She

looked at her companion, and, seeing that his face was discomposed,

fancied that he was annoyed at having been compelled to wait.

"Thank you," she said; "it's easily mended. And now suppose we go back."

"No, not yet," said Ferdinand. "We have plenty of time."

"Plenty of time to catch cold," said Miss Hofmann, kindly.

Mason had planted his stick where he had let it fall on withdrawing it

from contact with his companion's skirts, and stood leaning against it,

with his eyes on the young girl's face. "What if I do catch cold?" he

asked abruptly.

"Come, don't talk nonsense," said Miss Hofmann.

"I never was more serious in my life." And, pausing a moment, he drew a

couple of steps nearer. She had gathered her shawl closely about her,

and stood with her arms lost in it, holding her elbows. "I don't mean

that quite literally," Mason continued. "I wish to get well, on the

whole. But there are moments when this perpetual self-coddling seems

beneath the dignity of man, and I'm tempted to purchase one short hour

of enjoyment, of happiness, at the cost--well, at the cost of my life if

necessary!"

This was a franker speech than Ferdinand had yet made; the reader may

estimate his habitual reserve. Miss Hofmann must have been somewhat

surprised, and even slightly puzzled. But it was plain that he expected

a rejoinder.

"I don't know what temptation you may have had," she answered, smiling;

"but I confess that I can think of none in your present circumstances

likely to involve the great sacrifice you speak of. What you say,

Colonel Mason, is half----"

"Half what?"

"Half ungrateful. Aunt Maria flatters herself that she has made

existence as easy and as peaceful for you--as stupid, if you like--as it

can possibly be for a--a clever man. And now, after all, to accuse her

of introducing temptations."

"Your aunt Maria is the best of women, Miss Hofmann," said Mason. "But

I'm not a clever man. I'm deplorably weak-minded. Very little things

excite me. Very small pleasures are gigantic temptations. I would give a

great deal, for instance, to stay here with you for half an hour."

It is a delicate question whether Miss Hofmann now ceased to be

perplexed; whether she discerned in the young man's accents--it was his

tone, his attitude, his eyes that were fully significant, rather than

his words--an intimation of that sublime and simple truth in the

presence of which a wise woman puts off coquetry and prudery, and stands

invested with perfect charity. But charity is nothing if not discreet;

and Miss Hofmann may very well have effected the little transaction I

speak of, and yet have remained, as she did remain, gracefully wrapped

in her shawl, with the same serious smile on her face. Ferdinand's heart

was thumping under his waistcoat; the words in which he might tell her

that he loved her were fluttering there like frightened birds in a

storm-shaken cage. Whether his lips would form them or not depended on

the next words she uttered. On the faintest sign of defiance or of

impatience he would really give her something to coquet withal. I repeat

that I do not undertake to follow Miss Hofmann's feelings; I only know

that her words were those of a woman of great instincts. "My dear

Colonel Mason," she said, "I wish we might remain here the whole

evening. The moments are quite too pleasant to be wantonly sacrificed.

I simply put you on your conscience. If you believe that you can safely

do so,--that you'll not have some dreadful chill in consequence,--let us

by all means stay awhile. If you do not so believe, let us go back to

the carriage. There is no good reason, that I see, for our behaving like

children."

If Miss Hofmann apprehended a scene,--I do not assert that she did,--she

was saved. Mason extracted from her words a delicate assurance that he

could afford to wait. "You're an angel, Miss Hofmann," he said, as a

sign that this kindly assurance had been taken. "I think we had better

go back."

Miss Hofmann accordingly led the way along: the path, and Ferdinand

slowly followed. A man who has submitted to a woman's wisdom generally

feels bound to persuade himself that he has surrendered at discretion. I

suppose it was in this spirit that Mason said to himself as he walked

along, "Well, I got what I wanted."

The next morning he was again an invalid. He woke up with symptoms which

as yet he had scarcely felt at all; and he was obliged to acknowledge

the bitter truth that, small as it was, his adventure had exceeded his

strength. The walk, the evening air, the dampness of the spot, had

combined to produce a violent attack of fever. As soon as it became

plain that, in vulgar terms, he was "in for it," he took his heart in

his hands and succumbed. As his condition grew worse, he was fortunately

relieved from the custody of this valuable organ, with all it contained

of hopes delayed and broken projects, by several intervals of prolonged

unconsciousness.

For three weeks he was a very sick man. For a couple of days his

recovery was doubted of. Mrs. Mason attended him with inexhaustible

patience and with the solicitude of real affection. She was resolved

that greedy Death should not possess himself, through any fault of hers,

of a career so full of bright possibilities and of that active gratitude

which a good-natured elderly woman would relish, as she felt that of her

_protégé_ to be. Her vigils were finally rewarded. One fine morning

poor, long-silent Ferdinand found words to tell her that he was better.

His recovery was very slow, however, and it ceased several degrees below

the level from which he had originally fallen. He was thus twice a

convalescent,--a sufficiently miserable fellow. He professed to be very

much surprised to find himself still among the living. He remained

silent and grave, with a newly contracted fold in his forehead, like a

man honestly perplexed at the vagaries of destiny. "It must be," he said

to Mrs. Mason,--"it must be that I am reserved for great things."

In order to insure absolute quiet in the house, Ferdinand learned Miss

Hofmann had removed herself to the house of a friend, at a distance of

some five miles. On the first day that the young man was well enough to

sit in his arm-chair Mrs. Mason spoke of her niece's return, which was

fixed for the morrow. "She will want very much to see you," she said.

"When she comes, may I bring her into your room?"

"Good heavens, no!" said Ferdinand, to whom the idea was very

disagreeable. He met her accordingly at dinner, three days later. He

left his room at the dinner hour, in company with Dr. Knight, who was

taking his departure. In the hall they encountered Mrs. Mason, who

invited the Doctor to remain, in honor of his patient's reappearance in

society. The Doctor hesitated a moment, and, as he did so, Ferdinand

heard Miss Hofmann's step descending the stair. He turned towards her

just in time to catch on her face the vanishing of a glance of

intelligence. As Mrs. Mason's back was against the staircase, her glance

was evidently meant for Knight. He excused himself on the plea of an

engagement, to Mason's regret, while the latter greeted the younger

lady. Mrs. Mason proposed another day,--the following Sunday; the Doctor

assented, and it was not till some time later that Ferdinand found

himself wondering why Miss Hofmann should have forbidden him to remain.

He rapidly perceived that during the period of their separation this

young lady had lost none of her charms; on the contrary, they were more

irresistible than ever. It seemed to Mason, moreover, that they were

bound together by a certain pensive gentleness, a tender, submissive

look, which he had hitherto failed to observe. Mrs. Mason's own remarks

assured him that he was not the victim of an illusion.

"I wonder what is the matter with Caroline," she said. "If it were not

that she tells me that she never was better, I should believe she is

feeling unwell. I've never seen her so simple and gentle. She looks like

a person who has a great fright,--a fright not altogether unpleasant."

"She has been staying in a house full of people," said Mason. "She has

been excited, and amused, and preoccupied; she returns to you and me

(excuse the juxtaposition,--it exists)--a kind of reaction asserts

itself." Ferdinand's explanation was ingenious rather than plausible.

Mrs. Mason had a better one. "I have an impression," she said, "George

Stapleton, the second of the sons, is an old admirer of Caroline's. It's

hard to believe that he could have been in the house with her for a

fortnight without renewing his suit, in some form or other."

Ferdinand was not made uneasy, for he had seen and talked with Mr.

George Stapleton,--a young man, very good-looking, very good-natured,

very clever, very rich, and very unworthy, as he conceived, of Miss

Hofmann. "You don't mean to say that your niece has listened to him," he

answered, calmly enough.

"Listened, yes. He has made himself agreeable, and he has succeeded in

making an impression,--a temporary impression," added Mrs. Mason with a

business-like air.

"I can't believe it," said Ferdinand.

"Why not? He's a very nice fellow."

"Yes,--yes," said Mason, "very nice, indeed. He's very rich, too." And

here the talk was interrupted by Caroline's entrance.

On Sunday the two ladies went to church. It was not till after they had

gone that Ferdinand left his room. He came into the little parlor, took

up a book, and felt something of the stir of his old intellectual life.

Would he ever again know what it was to work? In the course of an hour

the ladies came in, radiant with devotional millinery. Mrs. Mason soon

went out again, leaving the others together. Miss Hofmann asked

Ferdinand what he had been reading; and he was thus led to declare that

he really believed he should, after all, get the use of his head again.

She listened with all the respect which an intelligent woman who leads

an idle life necessarily feels for a clever man when he consents to make

her in some degree the confidant of his intellectual purposes. Quickened

by her delicious sympathy, her grave attention, and her intelligent

questions, he was led to unbosom himself of several of his dearest

convictions and projects. It was easy that from this point the

conversation should advance to matters of belief and hope in general.

Before he knew it, it had done so; and he had thus the great

satisfaction of discussing with the woman on whom of all others his

selfish and personal happiness was most dependent those great themes in

whose expansive magnitude persons and pleasures and passions are

absorbed and extinguished, and in whose austere effulgence the brightest

divinities of earth remit their shining. Serious passions are a good

preparation for the highest kinds of speculation. Although Ferdinand was

urging no suit whatever upon his companion, and consciously, at least,

making use in no degree of the emotion which accompanied her presence,

it is certain that, as they formed themselves, his conceptions were the

clearer for being the conceptions of a man in love. And, as for Miss

Hofmann, her attention could not, to all appearances, have been more

lively, nor her perception more delicate, if the atmosphere of her own

intellect had been purified by the sacred fires of a responsive passion.

Knight duly made his appearance at dinner, and proved himself once more

the entertaining gentleman whom our friends had long since learned to

appreciate. But Mason, fresh from his contest with morals and

metaphysics, was forcibly struck with the fact that he was one of those

men from whom these sturdy beggars receive more kicks than half-pence.

He was nevertheless obliged to admit, that, if he was not a man of

principles, he was thoroughly a man of honor. After dinner the company

adjourned to the piazza, where, in the course of half an hour, the

Doctor proposed to Miss Hofmann to take a turn in the grounds. All

around the lawn there wound a narrow footpath, concealed from view in

spots by clusters of shrubbery. Ferdinand and his hostess sat watching

their retreating figures as they slowly measured the sinuous strip of

gravel; Miss Hofmann's light dress and the Doctor's white waistcoat

gleaming at intervals through the dark verdure. At the end of twenty

minutes they returned to the house. The doctor came back only to make

his bow and to take his departure; and, when he had gone, Miss Hofmann

retired to her own room. The next morning she mounted her horse, and

rode over to see the friend with whom she had stayed during Mason's

fever. Ferdinand saw her pass his window, erect in the saddle, with her

horse scattering the gravel with his nervous steps. Shortly afterwards

Mrs. Mason came into the room, sat down by the young man, made her

habitual inquiries as to his condition, and then paused in such a way as

that he instantly felt that she had something to tell him. "You've

something to tell me," he said; "what is it?"

Mrs. Mason blushed a little, and laughed. "I was first made to promise

to keep it a secret," she said. "If I'm so transparent now that I have

leave to tell it, what should I be if I hadn't? Guess." Ferdinand shook

his head peremptorily. "I give it up."

"Caroline is engaged."

"To whom?"

"Not to Mr. Stapleton,--to Dr. Knight."

Ferdinand was silent a moment; but he neither changed color nor dropped

his eyes. Then, at last, "Did she wish you not to tell me?" he asked.

"She wished me to tell no one. But I prevailed upon her to let me tell

_you_."

"Thank you," said Ferdinand with a little bow--and an immense irony.

"It's a great surprise," continued Mrs. Mason. "I never suspected it.

And there I was talking about Mr. Stapleton! I don't see how they have

managed it. Well, I suppose it's for the best. But it seems odd that

Caroline should have refused so many superior offers, to put up at last

with Dr. Knight."

Ferdinand had felt for an instant as if the power of speech was

deserting him; but volition nailed it down with a great muffled

hammer-blow.

"She might do worse," he said mechanically.

Mrs. Mason glanced at him as if struck by the sound of his voice.

"You're not surprised, then?"

"I hardly know. I never fancied there was anything between them, and

yet, now that I look back, there has been nothing against it. They have

talked of each other neither too much nor too little. Upon my soul,

they're an accomplished couple!" Glancing back at his friend's constant

reserve and self-possession, Ferdinand--strange as it may seem--could

not repress a certain impulse of sympathetic admiration. He had had no

vulgar rival. "Yes," he repeated gravely, "she might do worse."

"I suppose she might. He's poor, but he's clever; and I'm sure I hope to

Heaven he loves her!"

Ferdinand said nothing.

"May I ask," he resumed at length, "whether they became engaged

yesterday, on that walk around the lawn?"

"No; it would be fine if they had, under our very noses! It was all done

while Caroline was at the Stapletons'. It was agreed between them

yesterday that she should tell me at once."

"And when are they to be married?"

"In September, if possible. Caroline told me to tell you that she counts

upon your staying for the wedding."

"Staying where?" asked Mason, with a little nervous laugh.

"Staying here, of course,--in the house."

Ferdinand looked his hostess full in the eyes, taking her hand as he did

so. "'The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage

tables.'"

"Ah, hold your tongue!" cried Mrs. Mason, pressing his hand. "How can

you be so horrible? When Caroline leaves me, Ferdinand, I shall be quite

alone. The tie which binds us together will be very much slackened by

her marriage. I can't help thinking that it was never very close, when I

consider that I've had no part in the most important step of her life. I

don't complain. I suppose it's natural enough. Perhaps it's the

fashion,--come in with striped petticoats and pea-jackets. Only it makes

me feel like an old woman. It removes me twenty years at a bound from my

own engagement, and the day I burst out crying on my mother's neck

because your uncle had told a young girl I knew, that he thought I had

beautiful eyes. Now-a-days I suppose they tell the young ladies

themselves, and have them cry on their own necks. It's a great saving of

time. But I shall miss Caroline all the same; and then, Ferdinand, I

shall make a great deal of you."

"The more the better," said Ferdinand, with the same laugh; and at this

moment Mrs. Mason was called away.

Ferdinand had not been a soldier for nothing. He had received a heavy

blow, and he resolved to bear it like a man. He refused to allow himself

a single moment of self-compassion. On the contrary, he spared himself

none of the hard names offered by his passionate vocabulary. For not

guessing Caroline's secret, he was perhaps excusable. Women were all

inscrutable, and this one especially so. But Knight was a man like

himself,--a man whom he esteemed, but whom he was loath to credit with a

deeper and more noiseless current of feeling than his own, for his own

was no babbling brook, betraying its course through green leaves. Knight

had loved modestly and decently, but frankly and heartily, like a man

who was not ashamed of what he was doing, and if he had not found it out

it was his own fault. What else had he to do? He had been a besotted

day-dreamer, while his friend had simply been a genuine lover. He

deserved his injury, and he would bear it in silence. He had been unable

to get well on an illusion; he would now try getting well on a truth.

This was stern treatment, the reader will admit, likely to kill if it

didn't cure.

Miss Hofmann was absent for several hours. At dinner-time she had not

returned, and Mrs. Mason and the young man accordingly sat down without

her. After dinner Ferdinand went into the little parlor, quite

indifferent as to how soon he met her. Seeing or not seeing her, time

hung equally heavy. Shortly after her companions had risen from table,

she rode up to the door, dismounted, tired and hungry, passed directly

into the dining-room, and sat down to eat in her habit. In half an hour

she came out, and, crossing the hall on her way upstairs, saw Mason in

the parlor. She turned round, and, gathering up her long skirts with one

hand, while she held a little sweet-cake to her lips with the other,

stopped at the door to bid him good day. He left his chair, and went

towards her. Her face wore a somewhat weary smile.

"So you're going to be married," he began abruptly.

Miss Hofmann assented with a slight movement of her head.

"I congratulate you. Excuse me if I don't do it with the best grace. I

feel all I dare to feel."

"Don't be afraid," said Caroline, smiling, and taking a bite from her

cake.

"I'm not sure that it's not more unexpected than even such things have a

right to be. There's no doubt about it."

"None whatever."

"Well, Knight's a very good fellow. I haven't seen him yet," he pursued,

as Caroline was silent. "I don't know that I'm in any hurry to see him.

But I mean to talk to him. I mean to tell him that if he doesn't do his

duty by you, I shall----"

"Well?"

"I shall remind him of it."

"O, I shall do that," said Miss Hofmann.

Ferdinand looked at her gravely. "By Heaven! you know," he cried with

intensity, "it must be either one thing or the other."

"I don't understand you."

"O, I understand myself. You're not a woman to be thrown away, Miss

Hofmann."

Caroline made a gesture of impatience. "I don't understand you," she

repeated. "You must excuse me. I'm very tired." And she went rapidly

upstairs.

On the following day Ferdinand had an opportunity to make his

compliments to the Doctor. "I don't congratulate you on doing it," he

said, "so much as on the way you've done it."

"What do you know about the way?" asked Knight.

"Nothing whatever. That's just it. You took good care of that. And

you're to be married in the autumn?"

"I hope so. Very quietly, I suppose. The Parson to do it, and Mrs. Mason

and my mother and you to see it's done properly." And the Doctor put his

hand on Ferdinand's shoulder.

"O, I'm the last person to choose," said Mason. "If he were to omit

anything, I should take good care not to cry out." It is often said,

that, next to great joy, no state of mind is so frolicsome as great

distress. It was in virtue of this truth, I suppose, that Ferdinand was

able to be facetious. He kept his spirits. He talked and smiled and

lounged about with the same deferential languor as before. During the

interval before the time appointed for the wedding it was agreed between

the parties interested that Miss Hofmann should go over and spend a few

days with her future mother-in-law, where she might partake more freely

and privately than at home of the pleasure of her lover's company. She

was absent a week; a week during which Ferdinand was thrown entirely

upon his hostess for entertainment and diversion,--things he had a very

keen sense of needing. There were moments when it seemed to him that he

was living by mere force of will, and that, if he loosened the screws

for a single instant, he would sink back upon his bed again, and never

leave it. He had forbidden himself to think of Caroline, and had

prescribed a course of meditation upon that other mistress, his first

love, with whom he had long since exchanged pledges,--she of a hundred

names,--work, letters, philosophy, fame. But, after Caroline had gone,

it was supremely difficult not to think of her. Even in absence she was

supremely conspicuous. The most that Ferdinand could do was to take

refuge in books,--an immense number of which he now read, fiercely,

passionately, voraciously,--in conversation with Mrs. Mason, and in such

society as he found in his path. Mrs. Mason was a great gossip,--a

gossip on a scale so magnificent as to transform the foible into a

virtue. A gossip, moreover, of imagination, dealing with the future as

well as the present and the past,--with a host of delightful

half-possibilities, as well as with stale hyper-verities. With her,

then, Ferdinand talked of his own future, into which she entered with

the most outspoken and intelligent sympathy. "A man," he declared,

"couldn't do better; and a man certainly would do worse." Mrs. Mason

arranged a European tour and residence for her nephew, in the manner of

one who knew her ground. Caroline once married, she herself would go

abroad, and fix herself in one of the several capitals in which an

American widow with an easy income may contrive to support existence.

She would make her dwelling a base of supplies--a _pied à terre_--for

Ferdinand, who should take his time to it, and visit every accessible

spot in Europe and the East. She would leave him free to go and come as

he pleased, and to live as he listed; and I may say that, thanks to Mrs.

Mason's observation of Continental manners, this broad allowance covered

in her view quite as much as it did in poor Ferdinand's, who had never

been out of his own country. All that she would ask of him would be to

show himself say twice a year in her drawing-room, and to tell her

stories of what he had seen; that drawing-room which she already saw in

her mind's eye,--a compact little _entresol_ with tapestry hangings in

the doorways and a coach-house in the court attached. Mrs. Mason was not

a severe moralist; but she was quite too sensible a woman to wish to

demoralize her nephew, and to persuade him to trifle with his

future,--that future of which the war had already made light, in its own

grim fashion. Nay, she loved him; she thought him the cleverest, the

most promising, of young men. She looked to the day when his name would

be on men's lips, and it would be a great piece of good fortune to have

very innocently married his uncle. Herself a great observer of men and

manners, she wished to give him advantages which had been sterile in her

own case.

In the way of society, Ferdinand made calls with his hostess, went out

twice to dine, and caused Mrs. Mason herself to entertain company at

dinner. He presided on these occasions with distinguished good grace. It

happened, moreover, that invitations had been out some days for a party

at the Stapletons',--Miss Hofmann's friends,--and that, as there was to

be no dancing, Ferdinand boldly announced his intention of going

thither. "Who knows?" he said; "it may do me more good than harm. We can

go late, and come away early." Mrs. Mason doubted of the wisdom of the

act; but she finally assented, and prepared herself. It was late when

they left home, and when they arrived the rooms--rooms of exceptional

vastness--were at their fullest. Mason received on this his first

appearance in society a most flattering welcome, and in a very few

moments found himself in exclusive possession of Miss Edith Stapleton,

Caroline's particular friend. This young lady has had no part in our

story, because our story is perforce short, and condemned to pick and

choose its constituent elements. With the least bit wider compass we

might long since have whispered to the reader, that Miss Stapleton--who

was a charming girl--had conceived a decided preference for our

Ferdinand over all other men whomsoever. That Ferdinand was utterly

ignorant of the circumstance is our excuse for passing it by; and we

linger upon it, therefore, only long enough to suggest that the young

girl must have been very happy at this particular moment.

"Is Miss Hofmann here?" Mason asked as he accompanied her into an

adjoining room.

"Do you call that being here?" said Miss Stapleton, looking across the

apartment. Mason, too, looked across.

There he beheld Miss Hofmann, full-robed in white, standing fronted by a

semicircle of no less than five gentlemen,--all good-looking and

splendid. Her head and shoulders rose serene from the _bouillonnement_

of her beautiful dress, and she looked and listened with that

half-abstracted air which is pardonable in a woman beset by half a dozen

admirers. When Caroline's eyes fell upon her friend, she stared a

moment, surprised, and then made him the most gracious bow in the

world,--a bow so gracious that her little circle half divided itself to

let it pass, and looked around to see where the deuce it was going.

Taking advantage of this circumstance, Miss Hofmann advanced several

steps. Ferdinand went towards her, and there, in sight of a hundred men

and as many women, she gave him her hand, and smiled upon him with

extraordinary sweetness. They went back together to Miss Stapleton, and

Caroline made him sit down, she and her friend placing themselves on

either side. For half an hour Ferdinand had the honor of engrossing the

attention of the two most charming girls present,--and, thanks to this

distinction, indeed the attention of the whole company. After which the

two young ladies had him introduced successively to every maiden and

matron in the assembly in the least remarkable for loveliness or wit.

Ferdinand rose to the level of the occasion, and conducted himself with

unprecedented gallantry. Upon others he made, of course, the best

impression, but to himself he was an object almost of awe. I am

compelled to add, however, that he was obliged to fortify himself with

repeated draughts of wine; and that even with the aid of this artificial

stimulant he was unable to conceal from Mrs. Mason and his physician

that he was looking far too much like an invalid to be properly where he

was.

"Was there ever anything like the avidity of these dreadful girls?" said

Mrs. Mason to the Doctor. "They'll let a man swoon at their feet sooner

than abridge a _tête-à-tête_ that amuses them. Then they'll have up

another. Look at little Miss McCarthy, yonder, with Ferdinand and George

Stapleton before her. She's got them contradicting each other, and she

looks like a Roman fast lady at the circus. What does she care so long

as she makes her evening? They like a man to look as if he were going to

die,--it's interesting."

Knight went over to his friend, and told him sternly that it was high

time he should be at home and in bed. "You're looking horribly," he

added shrewdly, as Ferdinand resisted.

"You're _not_ looking horribly, Colonel Mason," said Miss McCarthy, a

very audacious little person, overhearing this speech.

"It isn't a matter of taste, madam," said the Doctor, angrily; "it's a

fact." And he led away his patient.

Ferdinand insisted that he had not hurt himself, that, on the contrary,

he was feeling uncommonly well; but his face contradicted him. He

continued for two or three days more to play at "feeling well," with a

courage worthy of a better cause. Then at last he let disease have its

way. He settled himself on his pillows, and fingered his watch, and

began to wonder how many revolutions he would still witness of those

exquisite little needles. The Doctor came, and gave him a sound rating

for what he called his imprudence. Ferdinand heard him out patiently;

and then assured him that prudence or imprudence had nothing to do with

it; that death had taken fast hold of him, and that now his only concern

was to make easy terms with his captor. In the course of the same day he

sent for a lawyer and altered his will. He had no known relatives, and

his modest patrimony stood bequeathed to a gentleman of his acquaintance

who had no real need of it. He now divided it into two unequal portions,

the smaller of which he devised to William Bowles, Mrs. Mason's

man-servant and his personal attendant; and the larger--which

represented a considerable sum--to Horace Knight. He informed Mrs. Mason

of these arrangements, and was pleased to have her approval.

From this moment his strength began rapidly to ebb, and the shattered

fragments of his long-resisting will floated down its shallow current

into dissolution. It was useless to attempt to talk, to beguile the

interval, to watch the signs, or to count the hours. A constant

attendant was established at his side, and Mrs. Mason appeared only at

infrequent moments. The poor woman felt that her heart was broken, and

spent a great deal of time in weeping. Miss Hofmann remained, naturally,

at Mrs. Knight's. "As far as I can judge," Horace had said, "it will be

a matter of a week. But it's the most extraordinary case I ever heard

of. The man was steadily getting well." On the fifth day he had driven

Miss Hofmann home, at her suggestion that it was no more than decent

that she should give the young man some little sign of sympathy. Horace

went up to Ferdinand's bedside, and found the poor fellow in the languid

middle condition between sleeping and waking in which he had passed the

last forty-eight hours. "Colonel," he asked gently, "do you think you

could see Caroline?"

For all answer, Ferdinand opened his eyes. Horace went out, and led his

companion back into the darkened room. She came softly up to the

bedside, stood looking down for a moment at the sick man, and then

stooped over him.

"I thought I'd come and make you a little visit," she said. "Does it

disturb you?"

"Not in the least," said Mason, looking her steadily in the eyes. "Not

half as much as it would have done a week ago. Sit down."

"Thank you. Horace won't let me. I'll come again."

"You'll not have another chance," said Ferdinand. "I'm not good for more

than two days yet. Tell them to go out. I wish to see you alone. I

wouldn't have sent for you, but, now that you're here, I might as well

take advantage of it."

"Have you anything particular to say?" asked Knight, kindly.

"O, come," said Mason, with a smile which he meant to be good-natured,

but which was only ghastly; "you're not going to be jealous of me at

this time of day."

Knight looked at Miss Hofmann for permission, and then left the room

with the nurse. But a minute had hardly elapsed before Miss Hofmann

hurried into the adjoining apartment, with her face pale and

discomposed.

"Go to him!" she exclaimed. "He's dying!"

When they reached him he was dead.

In the course of a few days his will was opened, and Knight came to the

knowledge of his legacy. "He was a good, generous fellow," he said to

Mrs. Mason and Miss Hofmann, "and I shall never be satisfied that he

mightn't have recovered. It was a most extraordinary case." He was

considerate enough of his audience to abstain from adding that he would

give a great deal to have been able to make an autopsy. Miss Hofmann's

wedding was, of course, not deferred. She was married in September,

"very quietly." It seemed to her lover, in the interval, that she was

very silent and thoughtful. But this was natural under the

circumstances.