ve to Eeny," would be
the answer; and then she would stray off and leave him alone. She was as
changed to him as she was changed in other things. Grace stood
between--an insuperable barrier.

September drew to a close. October came, and with it the time for their
departure. Kate left reluctantly; she longed to stay there forever, in
that land of the sun, and forget and be at peace. It was like tearing
half-healed wounds open to go back to a place where everything her eye
rested on or her ear heard, from morning till night, recalled the bitter
past. But fate was inexorable; farewell must be said to beautiful
Georgia and the kind friends there; and the commencement of the second
week of October found them starting on their journey to their northern
home.

CHAPTER XVIII.

"IT'S AN ILL WIND THAT BLOWS NOBODY GOOD."

They journeyed northward very slowly, stopping for a few days at all the
great cities, so that October was gone and part of November when they
reached Montreal. There they lingered a week, and then began the last
stage of their journey home.

It was a desolate afternoon, near the middle of that most desolate
month, November, when Captain Danton and his daughter stepped into the
railway-fly at St. Croix, and were driven, as fast as the spavined old
nag would go, to Danton Hall. A desolate afternoon, with a low leaden
sky threatening snow, and earth like iron with hard black frost. A
wretched complaining wind that made your nerves ache, worried the
half-stripped trees, and now and then a great snowflake whirled in the
dull grey air. The village looked silent and deserted as they drove
through it, and a melancholy bell was slowly tolling, tolling, tolling
all the way. Kate shivered audibly, and wrapped her fur-lined mantle
closer around her.

"What is that wretched bell for?" she asked.

"It is the passing bell," replied the father, with a gloomy brow. "You
know the fever is in the village."

"And someone is dead."

She looked out with a dreary, shivering sigh over the bleak prospect.
Gaunt black trees, grim black marshes, dull black river, and low black
sky. Oh, how desolate! How desolate it all was--as desolate as her own
dead heart. What was the use of going away, what was the use of
forgetting for a few poor moments, and then coming back to the old
desolation and the old pain? What a weary, weary piece of business life
was at best, not worth the trouble and suffering it took to live!

The