I have observed of late is growing
upon his spirits. No other duty seems to me now greater than this, to
win him back to a healthy realization of life, and the need there is
of looking cheerfully upon such blessings as are left to our lot.

* * * * *

I went to the Colonel's at early candle-light, and I stayed till ten,
a late hour for me, and, as I hoped, for him. When I left I caught a
sight of old Hannah, standing in a distant hallway, and I thought she
looked grateful; at all events, she came forward very quickly after my
departure, for I heard the key turn in the lock of the great front
door before I had passed out of the gate.

Why did I not go home? I had meant to, and there was every reason why
I should. But I had no sooner felt the turf under my feet and seen the
stars over my head, than I began to wander in the very opposite
direction, and that without any very definite plan or purpose. I think
I was troubled, and if not troubled, restless, and yet movement did
not seem to help me, for I grew more uneasy with every step I took,
and began to look towards the woods to which I was half unconsciously
tending as if there I should find relief just as the Colonel, perhaps,
was in the habit of doing. Was it a mere foolish freak which had
assailed me, or was I under some uncanny influence, caught from the
place where I had been visiting?

I was yet asking myself this, when I heard distinctly through the
silence of the night the sound of a footstep behind me, and astonished
that any one else should have been beguiled at this hour into a walk
so dreary, I slipped into the shadow of a tree that stood at the
wayside and waited till the slowly advancing figure should pass and
leave me free to pursue my way or to go back unnoticed and
undisturbed.

I had not long to wait. In a moment a weirdly muffled form appeared
abreast of me, and it was with difficulty I suppressed a cry, for it
was the Colonel I saw, escaped, doubtless, from his old nurse's
surveillance, and as he passed he groaned, and the sad sound coming
through the night at a time when my own spirits were in no comfortable
mood affected me with almost a superstitious power, so that I trembled
where I stood and knew not whether to follow him or go back and seek
the cheer of my own hearth. But I decided in another moment to follow
him, and when he had withdrawn far enough up the road not to hear the
sound of my footfalls, I steppe