consciousness; then uneasy consciousness
of him; then, imperceptibly, through distrust, alarm, and a
thousand inexplicable psychological emotions, to a wistful interest
that faintly responded to his. Ah! that response!--strange,
childish, ignorant, restless--but still a response; and from
obscure shallows unsuspected, uncomprehended--shallows that had
never before warned her with the echo of an evanescent ripple.

For him to have reflected, reasoned, halted himself, had been
useless from the beginning. The sister-in-law of this girl knew
who and what he was and had been. There was no hope for him. To
let himself drift; to evoke in her, sometimes by hazard, at times
with intent, the delicate response--faint echo--pale shadow of the
virile emotions she evoked in him, that, too, was useless. He knew
it, yet curious to try, intent on developing communication through
those exquisite and impalpable lines that threaded the mystery from
him to her--from her to him.

And then, when the mystery all about them was aquiver, and her
vague eyes met his through the magic, acquiescent under a sorcery
for which she had no name--then, when all things occult breathed
silence--then he had said too much!

It was perhaps as well that he had said it then as later--as well
perhaps that, losing self-control, defeat had moved his tongue to
boast, had fixed the empty eye and stamped the smile he wore with a
confidence dead in him for ever.

He had said that he would come back. He knew that he would not.

It was the pitiful defiance of a boaster hopelessly hurt.

He no longer desired to see her again. Never again would he risk
enduring what she had evoked in him, whatever it was of good or of
evil, of the spiritual or the impure--he did not know he was aware
only of what his eyes had beheld and his heart had begun to desire.

On his way back from the office that evening he met Camilla Lent
and her uncle, the Captain, and would have passed with an amiable
salute, but the girl evinced a decided desire to speak. So he
turned and joined them.

"How do you do, Camilla? How are you, Captain Lent? This
re-conversion of the nation's ploughshares and pruning hooks is a
noisy affair, isn't it?"

"April 18th, 1861!" replied the Captain quickly. "What you hear,
sir, is the attrition consequent upon the grinding together of
certain millstones belonging to the gods."

"I have no doubt of it, Captain Lent; they'll probably make meal of