ll enough of indecision in it to keep him tantalized. In a
state of mind well nigh distraction, he bade "Annie" and her cheerful
fireside farewell and set his face toward Providence; but he went in a
dream--the demon Despair, possessing him.

Unstrung, unmanned, almost bereft of reason, his old dissatisfaction
with himself and the world overtook him--a longing to be out of it all,
for forgetfulness, for peace, yea, even the peace of the grave,--why
not?

A passionate longing--a homesickness--for the sure, the steadfast, the
unvariable love of his beautiful Virginia consumed him. Oh, if he could
but lie down and sleep and forget until one sweet day he should wake in
the land where she awaited him, and where they would construct anew, and
for eternity, the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass!

He listened.... For the first time since the Star of Love had ushered in
a new day in his life, he heard the swinging of the censers of the
angels--he inhaled the incense--he heard the voice of Virginia in the
sighing wind. She seemed to call to him.

"I am coming, Heartsease!" he whispered as he quaffed the potion that he
reckoned would bear him to her.

* * * * *

But it was not to be. When he awaked, weak and ill, but sane, he found
himself with friends. Calmness and strength returned and with them,
horror at the deed he had so nearly committed, and deep contrition.

With all haste he again presented himself at the door of "Helen,"
beseeching her to marry him at once and save him, as he believed she
only could, from himself. And the consequences of her indecision making
her more alarmed for him than she had formerly been for herself, she
agreed to an engagement, though not to immediate marriage.

He returned to Fordham and to faithful Mother Clemm a wreck of his
former self, but engaged to be married!

Yet he was not happy--a new horror possessed him. As in the night when
the Star of Love first rose upon his vigil it had stopped over the door
of "a legended tomb," so now again was his pathway closed. Turn which
way he would, the tomb of Virginia seemed to frown upon him. He
remembered his promise to her that upon no other daughter of earth
would he look with the eyes of love. Vainly did he seek to justify
himself to his own heart for breaking the promise. No one could ever
supplant her, or fill the void in his life her death had made, he told
himself--this new love was something different, an