When he passed the house the next day they were gone. The nursery windows were thrown open, and he fancied that the place wore a deserted look. The very streets seemed empty, and the glare of sunshine, whose heat increased with every hour, added to the air of desolateness he imagined.

"It is imagination," he said. "And the feeling will die away all the more quickly because I recognize the unreality of it. By to-morrow or the day after I shall have got over it."

And yet a week later, when he dropped in upon the professor, one sultry evening, to spend an hour with him, his old friend found cause for anxious inspection of him.

"What," he said, "the hot weather begins to tell on you already! You are not acclimatized yet,—that\'s it. You must spare yourself as much as possible. It doesn\'t promise well that you look fagged so soon. I should say you had not slept well."

"I don\'t sleep well," Tredennis answered.

"You are working too hard," said the professor; "that is it, perhaps."

"I am not working hard enough," replied Tredennis, with a slight knitting of the brows. "I wish I had more to do. Leisure does not agree with me."

"One must occupy one\'s self!" said the professor. He spoke half-absently, and yet with a touch of significance in his tone which—combined with the fact that he had heard the words before—caused Tredennis to glance at him quickly.

He smiled slightly, in answer to the glance.

"Bertha?" he said. "Oh, yes, I am quoting Bertha.[Pg 151] Your manner is not as light as hers, but it reminded me of her in some way; perhaps because I had a letter from her to-day, and she was in my thoughts."

"I hope she is well," said Tredennis, "and does not find her farm-house too dull."

"She does not complain of it," the professor answered. "And she says nothing of her own health, but tells me she is a little anxious about Janey, who does not seem quite herself."

Tredennis looked out into the darkening street. They were sitting by the opened window.

"She was not well when she went away," he said, a trifle abstractedly.

"Janey?" asked the professor, as if the idea was new to him; "I did not know that."

Tredennis roused himself.

"I—was thinking of Bertha," he said.

"Oh, of Bertha," said the professor, and then he lapsed into a reverie himself for a few moments; and seemed to watch the trees on the street without seeing them.

"No, she was not well," he said, at length; "but I think she will be better when she comes back."

"The rest and quiet"—began Tredennis.

"I think she had determined to be better," said the professor.

"Determined?" repeated Tredennis.

"She has a strong will," returned the professor, "though it is a thing she is never suspected of. She does not suspect herself of it, and yet she has relied upon its strength from the first, and is relying upon it now. I am convinced that she went away with the determination to conquer a restlessness whose significance she is just awakening to. And she deliberately chose nature and the society of her children as the best means of cure."

"Do you think," asked Tredennis, in a low voice, "that she will get over it?"

[Pg 152]

The professor turned to look at him.

"I don\'t know," he answered, with a slight tone of surprise. "Why did you fancy I would?"

"You seem to understand her," said Tredennis.

The professor sighed.

"I have studied her so long," he replied, "that I imagine I know what she is doing, but you can\'t safely go beyond that with women; you can\'t say what they are going to do,—with any degree of certainty. They are absorbingly interesting as a study, but they are not to be relied on. And they rarely compliment your intelligence by doing what you expect of them. She has not done what I expected. She has lived longer than I thought she would without finding herself out. A year ago she believed that she had proved to herself that such an emotion as—as this was impossible to her. It was a very innocent belief, and she was entirely sincere in it, and congratulated herself upon it." He turned to Tredennis again with a sudden movement and a curious look of pain in his face. "I am afraid it\'s a great mistake," he said.

"What?" Tredennis asked.

"This—this feeling," he said, in a tremulous and troubled voice. "I don\'t mean in her alone, but in any one, everywhere. I am not sure that it ever brings happiness really in the end. I am afraid there always is an end. If there wasn\'t, it might be different; but I am afraid there is. There are those of us who try to believe there is none, but—but I am afraid those are happiest who lose all but their ideal. There are many who lose even that, and Fate has done her worst by them." He checked himself, and sank back in his chair.

"Ah!" he said, smiling half sadly. "I am an old man—an old man,—and it is an old man\'s fancy, that the best thing in life is death. And Fate did not do her worst by me; she left me my ideal. She had gray eyes," he added, "and a bright face, like Bertha\'s. [Pg 153]Perhaps, after all, if I had won what I wanted, I should not feel so old to-night, and so tired. Her face was very bright."

He had not been wholly well for some days, and to-night seemed fatigued by the heat and languor in the air, but he was somewhat more hopeful when he spoke of Bertha than he had been.

"I have confidence in the strength of her will," he said, "and I like her pride and courage. She does not give away to her emotions; she resents them fiercely, and refuses to acknowledge their powers over her. She insists to herself that her restlessness is nervousness, and her sadness morbid."

"She said as much to me," said Tredennis.

"Did she?" exclaimed the professor. "That is a good sign; it shows that she has confidence in you, and that it is a feeling strong enough to induce her to use you as a defence against her own weakness. She would never have spoken if she had not believed that you were a sort of stronghold. It is the old feeling of her girlhood ruling her again. Thank Heaven for that!"

There was a ring at the front-door bell as he spoke, and a moment or so later it was answered by a servant; buoyant feet were heard in the hall, and paused a second on the threshold.

"Are you here, Professor?" some one inquired. "And may I come in?"

Professor Herrick turned his head.

"Come in, Richard," he said; "come in, by all means." And Amory entered and advanced toward them.

The slight depression of manner Tredennis had fancied he had seen in him on the last two occasions of their meeting had disappeared altogether. He seemed even in gayer spirits than usual.

"I have come to tell you," he said to the professor, "that I am going away for a short time. It is a matter of business connected with the Westoria lands. I may be away a week or two."

[Pg 154]

"Isn\'t it rather a long journey?" asked the professor.

"Oh, yes," he replied, with no air of being daunted by the prospect,—"and a tiresome one, but it is important that I should make it, and I shall not be alone."

"Who is to be your companion?"

"Planefield—and he\'s rather an entertaining fellow, in his way—Planefield. Oh, it won\'t be so bad, on the whole."

"It is Planefield who is interested in the lands, if I remember rightly," suggested the professor.

"Oh, Planefield?" Richard replied, c............