back in the city, the General's rapidly failing
health kept me close as a prisoner at his side. When October came and I
met her at the station, I noticed, with my first glance, that the look
of excitement, of strained and unnatural brilliancy, had returned to her
appearance. Some inward flame, burning steadily at a white heat, shone
in her eyes and in her altered, transparent features.

"It's good to have you back again, heaven knows," I remarked, as we
drove up the street between the scattered trees in their changing
October foliage. "The house has been like a prison."

For the first time since she had stepped from the train, she leaned
nearer and looked at me attentively, as if she were trying to recall
some detail to her memory.

"You're different, Ben," she said; "you look so--so careless."

Her tone was gentle, yet it fell on my ears with a curious detachment, a
remoteness, as if in thought, at least, she were standing off somewhere
in an unapproachable place.

"I've had nobody to keep me up and I've grown seedy," I replied, trying
to speak with lightness. "Now I'll begin grooming again, but all the
same, I've made a pretty pile of money for you this summer."

"Oh, money!" she returned indifferently, "I've heard nothing but money
since I went away. Is there a spot on earth, I wonder, where in this age
they worship another God?"

"I know one person who doesn't worship it, and that's Dr. Theophilus."

She laughed softly.

"Well, the doctor and I will have to set up a little altar of our own."

For the first month after her return, I hoped that she had come back to
a quieter and a more healthful life; but with the beginning of the
winter season, she resumed the ceaseless rush of gaiety in which she had
lived for the last two years. She was rarely at home now in the
evenings; I came up always too tired or too busy to go out with her, and
after dining alone, without dressing, I would hurry into my study for an
hour's work with Bradley, or more often doze for a while before the
cedar logs, with a cigar in my hand. On the few occasions when she
remained at home, our conversation languished feebly because the one
subject which engrossed my thoughts was received by her with candid, if
smiling, scorn.

"I sometimes wish, Ben," she remarked one evening while we sat by the
hearth for a few minutes before going upstairs, "that you'd begin to
learn Johnson's Dictionary again. I'm sure it's more interesting than
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