most
hopeful reports. But there were others. There was never the body of an
unknown man found anywhere that was not reported to be yours. Oh, Rule!
think of the anguish all these rumors cost your friends!"

"Cost you, my poor Corona! I doubt if they cost any other human being a
single pang."

"But all these rumors proved to be false, and your fate remained a
mystery until it was apparently cleared up by the report of your murder
by the Comanches in the massacre of La Terrepeur."

"A report as false as any of the others, as you see, yet with a better
foundation in probability than any of those, as I have explained. But
how my letter of resignation should have been lost I cannot conjecture.
I posted it with my own hand," said Rothsay, reflectively.

"Why, letters are occasionally lost in the mail! But, Rule, how was it
that you never heard of all the amazement and confusion that followed
your flight, for the want of your letter to explain it?"

"Because, dear, from the time I left the State capital to this day I
have never seen a newspaper or spoken to a civilized being."

"Rule!"

"It is true, dear! Look at me. Have I not degenerated into a savage?"

"No, no, no, Regulas Rothsay! you could never do that! Ah! how much
nobler you look to me in that rude forest garb than ever in the fine
dress of the drawing room! But tell me about your journey from the city
into the wilderness, and of your life since."

"I have been trying to do so, Cora, but every time I try to begin my
narrative by reverting to the hour of my flight, I seem spellbound to
that hour and cannot escape from it. But I will try again," he said,
and he began his story.

He told her, in brief, that on leaving the Rockhold house and going out
upon the sidewalk, he found the streets still alight with illuminated
houses and alive with the orgies of revelers who had come to the
inauguration.

In moving through the crowd he was unrecognized, for who could suspect
the black-coated figure passing alone along the street at midnight to be
the governor-elect of the State, in whose honor the assembled multitudes
were getting drunk?

His first intention had been to take a hack, drive to the railway depot,
and board the first train going West. But the hacks were all engaged as
sleeping berths by men who could not get accommodations in any of the
houses of the overcrowded city.

So he set off to walk, and almost immediately came face to face with old
Scythia