the bust of Beethoven in the park. She had
been the beginning and in some sense she had been the ending of his
engagement. Millard walked away from Rudolph in a preoccupied way.
Suddenly he turned and called after him:

"I say--Schulenberg!"

The young man faced about and came back. Millard said to him in a low
voice and with feeling: "Will you let me know if your sister dies? Come
straight to me. Don't say anything about it, but maybe I can show myself
a friend in some way. Here's my address at home, and between nine and
three I'm at the Bank of Manhadoes."

Rudolph said yes, and tried to thank him, but Millard strode away, his
mind reverting to the poor girl whose now fast-withering life seemed to
have some occult relation to his own, and thinking, too, of Phillida's
unfaltering ministrations. What mistakes and delusions could not be
forgiven to one so unwearyingly good? Why did he not share her reproach
with her, and leave her to learn by time and hard experience? Such
thoughts stung him sorely. And this death, under her very hand, of the
Schulenberg girl must be a sore trial. Would she learn from failure? Or
would she resolutely pursue her course?

Millard was not a man to lament the inevitable. Once he and Phillida had
broken, he had set out to be what he had been before. But who shall
cause the shadow to go backward upon the dial of Ahaz? When was a human
being ever the same after a capital passion that he had been before?
Millard had endeavored to dissipate his thoughts in society and at
places of amusement, only to discover that he could not revolve again in
the orbit from which he had been diverted by the attraction of Phillida.

Business, in so far as it engrossed his thoughts, had produced a
temporary forgetfulness, and of business he now had a great deal.
Farnsworth, who had contrived to give everybody connected with the Bank
of Manhadoes more uneasiness than one could reasonably expect from a man
whose vitality was so seriously impaired, died about this time, just
when those who knew him best had concluded that he was to be exempted
from the common lot. He died greatly regretted by all who had known him,
and particularly by those who had been associated with him in the
conduct of the bank from its foundation. So ran the words of the
obituary resolutions drafted by Masters, adopted by the Board of
Directors of the bank, printed in all the newspapers, and engrossed for
the benefit of his widow and his po