mself plunged in an atmosphere unlike any he
had ever breathed in books; so warm, so rich, and yet so ineffably
tender, that it gave a new and haunting beauty to the most elementary
of human passions. All through the night he pursued through those
enchanted pages the vision of a woman who had the face of Ellen
Olenska; but when he woke the next morning, and looked out at the
brownstone houses across the street, and thought of his desk in Mr.
Letterblair's office, and the family pew in Grace Church, his hour in
the park of Skuytercliff became as far outside the pale of probability
as the visions of the night.

"Mercy, how pale you look, Newland!" Janey commented over the
coffee-cups at breakfast; and his mother added: "Newland, dear, I've
noticed lately that you've been coughing; I do hope you're not letting
yourself be overworked?" For it was the conviction of both ladies
that, under the iron despotism of his senior partners, the young man's
life was spent in the most exhausting professional labours--and he had
never thought it necessary to undeceive them.

The next two or three days dragged by heavily. The taste of the usual
was like cinders in his mouth, and there were moments when he felt as
if he were being buried alive under his future. He heard nothing of
the Countess Olenska, or of the perfect little house, and though he met
Beaufort at the club they merely nodded at each other across the
whist-tables. It was not till the fourth evening that he found a note
awaiting him on his return home. "Come late tomorrow: I must explain
to you. Ellen." These were the only words it contained.

The young man, who was dining out, thrust the note into his pocket,
smiling a little at the Frenchness of the "to you." After dinner he
went to a play; and it was not until his return home, after midnight,
that he drew Madame Olenska's missive out again and re-read it slowly a
number of times. There were several ways of answering it, and he gave
considerable thought to each one during the watches of an agitated
night. That on which, when morning came, he finally decided was to
pitch some clothes into a portmanteau and jump on board a boat that was
leaving that very afternoon for St. Augustine.

XVI.

When Archer walked down the sandy main street of St. Augustine to the
house which had been pointed out to him as Mr. Welland's, and saw May
Welland standing under a magnolia with the sun in her hair, he wondered
why he