d it, and the figure of the man before him
more lonely, helpless, and abandoned. With one of his sympathetic
impulses he said:--

"I don't like to leave you here alone. Are you sure you can help
yourself without George? Can I do anything before I go?"

"I am quite accustomed to it," said Pendleton, quietly. "It happens
once or twice a year, and when I go out--well--I miss more than I do
here."

He took Paul's proffered hand mechanically, with a slight return of the
critical, doubting look he had cast upon him when he entered. His
voice, too, had quite recovered its old dominance, as he said, with
half-patronizing conventionality, "You'll have to find your way out
alone. Let me know how you have sped at Santa Clara, will you?
Good-by."

The staircase and passage seemed to have grown shabbier and meaner as
Paul, slowly and hesitatingly, descended to the street. At the foot of
the stairs he paused irresolutely, and loitered with a vague idea of
turning back on some pretense, only that he might relieve himself of
the sense of desertion. He had already determined upon making that
inquiry into the colonel's personal and pecuniary affairs which he had
not dared to offer personally, and had a half-formed plan of testing
his own power and popularity in a certain line of relief that at once
satisfied his sympathies and ambitions. Nevertheless, after reaching
the street, he lingered a moment, when an odd idea of temporizing with
his inclinations struck him. At the farther end of the hotel--one of
the parasites living on its decayed fortunes--was a small barber's
shop. By having his hair trimmed and his clothes brushed he could
linger a little longer beneath the same roof with the helpless
solitary, and perhaps come to some conclusion. He entered the clean
but scantily furnished shop, and threw himself into one of the nearest
chairs, hardly noting that there were no other customers, and that a
single assistant, stropping a razor behind a glass door, was the only
occupant. But there was a familiar note of exaggerated politeness
about the voice of this man as he opened the door and came towards the
back of the chair with the formula:--

"Mo'nin', sah! Shall we hab de pleshure of shavin' or hah-cuttin' dis
mo'nin'?" Paul raised his eyes quickly to the mirror before him. It
reflected the black face and grizzled hair of George.

More relieved at finding the old servant still near his master than
caring to comprehe