A limp flannel dressing-gown of orange
hue, and an orange silk handkerchief in the shape of a tight turban,
formed his costume during this rite. But no knight of old (poet's
delineation) was ever influenced by a more delicate sense of honor than
was this flannel-draped little cavalier of Gracias, as he walked up and
down his room, keeping his eyes turned away from the hearth until the
dying light told him that nothing was left but ashes.

Then he sat down and meditated. If he should make up his mind to speak
to Winthrop, there must be of course some mention of Garda, even if but
a word. To the Doctor's sense it was supremely better that there should
be no mention. There was no reason for mentioning her on her own
account--not the slightest; it was on account of Lucian. Yes, Lucian! If
he had met that young man in the woods, or if he had found him at Madam
Giron's, he could not tell; he might--he _might_---- And now, in case he
did not speak to Winthrop, Lucian would escape, he would escape all
reckoning for his misdeeds, a thing which seemed to the Doctor
insupportable! Still, he was gone, his place among them was safely empty
at last; and here the thinker could not but realize that it was better
for everybody that the place should be empty from a voluntary departure
than from one which might have resounded through the State, and been
termed perhaps--involuntary! And with a flush of conscious color over
his own past heat, the fiery little gentleman sought his bed.

The next morning it was discovered that Mrs. Harold's headache had meant
an attack of fever. The fever was not severe, but it kept her confined
to her bed for eight days; Mrs. Carew took her place at the head of the
household, and Mrs. Carew's dear Katrina had a course of severer mental
discipline than she had been afflicted with for many months, finding
herself desperately uncomfortable every hour without Margaret and
Margaret's supervision of affairs.

Garda did all she could for Margaret. But there was something in illness
that was extremely strange to her; she had never been ill for a moment
in all her recollection; and her delicate little mother had held
illness at bay for herself by sheer force of determination all her life,
until the very last. Though Garda, therefore, could not be called a good
nurse, she was at least an affectionate one; she came in often, though
she did not stay long, and she was so radiant with life and health when
she did come