othing until they were standing on the verandah steps
and he had bidden her good-night, saying that he must ride back to
Claremont.

"I understand why you will not remain," she said; "but do not make any
rash resolution about Egypt--above all, do not _commit_ yourself to
anything." Then she bent forward and touched his hand lightly. "Tell
me when you come again that you will join my party for the White
Sulphur," she said softly. "It will be the wisest thing you can do."

The result of this disinterested advice was, that as soon as he
reached home, after a lonely, starlit ride of six miles, Clare sat
down and wrote to General ----, accepting the position he had offered,
and promising to report in Cairo as soon as possible.

After this it was several days before the future Egyptian soldier was
seen again at The Willows. What went on in that gay abode during this
interval he neither knew nor sought to know. He endeavored to banish
all memory of the place and the people whom it contained from his
mind. They were nothing to him, he told himself. It was impossible to
say whether he shrank most from the pain of meeting Eleanor Milbourne
with her accepted lover by her side, or from the thrill of disgust
with which the mere thought of Mrs. Lancaster inspired him. He buried
himself in listless idleness at Claremont for some time: then ordered
his horse one day, rode to a neighboring town and made arrangements
for the sale of his property with much the same feeling as if he had
ordered the execution of his mother. It was when he returned weary and
depressed from this excursion that he found a note from Mrs. Brantley
awaiting him.

"DEAR MAJOR CLARE" (it ran), "why have you forsaken us? We have looked
for you, wished for you and talked of you for days, but you seem to
have determined that we shall learn the full meaning of the verb 'to
disappoint.' Will you not come over to dinner to-day? I think you have
played hermit quite long enough.

"Truly yours, L.M.B."

To say that Clare declined this invitation would be equivalent to
saying that a moth of its own accord kept at a safe distance from the
glowing flame which enticed it. As he read the note his heart gave a
leap. He began to wonder and ask himself why he had remained away so
long. Was it not the sheerest folly and absurdity? What was Eleanor
Milbourne to him that he should banish himself on her account from the
only pleasant house within a radius of twenty miles? A man