rcy Park. It makes no difference to her now where she is, nor
whether she sees Mrs. Payne or not. She even sits for hours and listens
to Uncle Percival play upon his flute."

"It will be the death of her," he answered gravely. "Is there nothing we
can do?"

"Nothing. I've done everything--she's really stone."

"Well, we'll bring her round," said Adams cheerfully; but when he saw
Laura herself in the afternoon, he instinctively turned his eyes away
from the frozen sweetness in her look. He was aware that she made an
effort to be pleasant, but her pleasantness reminded him of an
artificial light on a figure of snow.

"I had hoped you would grow stronger in the South," he said, though all
conversation seemed to him to have become suddenly the most impersonal
thing on earth.

"But I am strong," she answered, "I am never ill a day."

"There's something about you, all the same, that I don't like," he
responded frankly.

"I know," she nodded, smiling, "you aren't used to seeing a dead person
walk about. But it's very comfortable when you grow accustomed to it,"
she added, with a laugh.

At this he would have brought a more intimate note into his voice, but
she evaded his first hint of earnestness by a cynical little jest she
had picked up from Gerty. Her intention--if she intended anything--he
saw clearly now was to confine her perceptions to the immediate surface
of life presented before her eyes. She spoke with animation of the
country she had left, of Gerty's gayeties, of the wonderful brightness
of the weather; but when by a more serious question he sought to
penetrate below this fluency of words, he was repelled again by the
impression of a mere hollow amiability in her manner. After a few casual
remarks he left her with the most hopeless feeling he had known for
months, and when, as the days went on, he endeavored fruitlessly to
arouse in her a single sincere interest in human affairs, he found
himself wondering if it were possible for any creature to be still alive
and yet to resemble so closely a figure of marble. Day after day he came
only to yield at last to his baffled efforts; and the thin cold smile
with which she responded to his words appeared to him sadder than any
passionate outburst of tears. Even Connie on that last afternoon had
seemed to him more human and less unapproachable than Laura now.

Through the spring he saw her almost every day, and when in June he put
her on the train with Gerty for