se of October pale, fragile-looking, and
woefully depressed. Roland no longer found her always smiling and
hoping, and he called the change bad temper when he ought to have
called it hunger. Not indeed hunger in its baldest form for mere
bread, but hunger just as killing--hunger for the nourishing delicate
food and proper tonics that were just as necessary as bread; hunger
for hope, for work, and, above all, hunger for affection.

For Roland had begun privately--yea, and sometimes openly--to call
himself a fool. And the devil, who never chooses a wrong hour, sent
him at this time an important letter from Elizabeth. In it she told
him that Mr. Burrell had died suddenly from apoplexy, and that she had
resolved to sell Burrell Court and make her residence in London and
Lucerne. She deplored his absence, and said how much she had needed
some one of her own family in the removal from Cornwall and in the
settlement of her husband's estate; and she sent her brother a much
smaller sum of money than she had ever sent before.

When Roland had finished reading this epistle he looked at Denasia.
She was walking about the room trying to soothe and quiet the child.
It was very ill, and she had not dared to speak about a doctor.
Therefore she was feeling hurt and sorrowful, and when Roland said,
"Elizabeth's husband is dead," she did not answer him.

"I said that Elizabeth's husband is dead," he angrily reiterated.

"Very well. I am not sorry. I should think the poor man would be glad
to escape from her."

"You are speaking of my sister, Denasia--of my sister, who is a
lady."

"I care nothing about her. She could always take good care of herself.
I am heart-broken for my child, who is ill and suffering, and I can do
nothing for his relief--no, not even get a doctor."

Words still more bitter followed. Roland dressed himself and went out.
He was not in a mood to do business or to look for business; indeed,
there was no need that he should trouble himself for one day when he
had Elizabeth's order in his pocket. He turned it into cash, bought
the daily newspapers, and, the morning being exquisite, he took the
cars to Central Park. But it was not until he was comfortably seated
in the most retired arbour that he permitted himself to think.

Then he frankly said over and over: "What a fool I have been! Here am
I at thirty-three years of age tied to a plain-looking fisher-girl and
her cross, sickly baby. All I hoped for in her has