of
humiliation, or lift his hat to a lady of his acquaintance in her
passing carriage without a vivid feeling of separateness from his old
life. For the old life--he could see that any day in the Avenue, any
evening by the flaming lights--went by in its gilded chariots and
entrancing toilets, the fascinating whirl of Vanity Fair crowned with
roses and with ennui. Did he regret it? No doubt. Not to regret would
have been to change his nature, and that were a feat impossible for his
biographer to accomplish. In a way his life was gone, and to build up a
new life, serene and enduring, was not the work of a day.

One thing he did not regret in the shock he had received, and that was
the absence of Carmen and her world. When he thought of her he had a
sense of escape. She was still abroad, and he heard from time to time
that Mavick was philandering about from capital to capital in her train.
Certainly he would have envied neither of them if he had been aware, as
the reader is aware, of the guilty secret that drew them together and
must be forever their torment. They knew each other.

But this glittering world, to attain a place in which is the object of
most of the struggles and hungry competition of modern life, seemed
not so real nor so desirable when he was at home with Edith, and in his
gradually growing interest in nobler pursuits. They had decided to take
a modest apartment in town for the winter, and almost before the lease
was signed, Edith, in her mind, had transformed it into a charming home.
Jack used to rally her on her enthusiasm in its simple furnishing; it
reminded him, he said, of Carmen's interest in her projected house of
Nero. It was a great contrast, to be sure, to their stately house by the
Park, but it was to them both what that had never been. To one who knows
how life goes astray in the solicitations of the great world, there was
something pathetic in Edith's pleasure. Even to Jack it might some day
come with the force of keen regret for years wasted, that it is enough
to break a body's heart to see how little a thing can make a woman
happy.

It was another summer. Major Fairfax had come down with Jack to spend
Sunday at the Golden House. Edith was showing the Major the view from
the end of the veranda. Jack was running through the evening paper.
"Hi!" he cried; "here's news. Mavick is to have the mission to Rome, and
it is rumored that the rich and accomplished Mrs. Henderson, as the wife
of the