bout himself, Lily, and Barclay, and posted it.

"Peter will understand me," he thought; "and more than that, he will
understand Lily."

The last day of the Formicas' stay in Saratoga came. Osgood and Dr.
Black appeared in traveling costume. Lily saw them enter the
breakfast-room, and followed them with her father. As she passed their
chairs, she asked, "Do you go to-day?" Osgood bowed. Dr. Black engaged
Mr. Tree in making a remark.

"Why do you go?" she asked.

"Because Barclay stays," he whispered.

She turned a fiery red and passed on. He looked across the table once
and met her eyes. She thought they said "_Farewell._" A wild wish rose
in her heart which compelled all her nature to give way to it, to
speak to him once more; to see him alone, and force him to tell her if
he loved her. She resolved to find him somewhere, at all hazards.

Dr. Black watched her also. His comment was, that she was "coming to a
crisis," and was beautifully following out the laws which governed her
sex. "Why can't they be something without hysterics?" he lamented.
"Osgood will break down if he is not got away." He mechanically turned
back his wristbands.

Lily waited in an ante-room, whose door Osgood must pass on his way
out, and when he came, beckoned to him.

"Say your farewell to me as you feel it," she said, her eyes in a
blaze.

"I can not."

"You shall."

Her eyes and her voice threw him into a tumult; had he followed the
desire which assailed him, he would have taken her in his arms and
carried her off. As it was, he looked at her, with a far-off look, as
if he were calling some one to his aid.

"Osgood, Osgood!" she cried.

"Lily!"

She wrung her hands.

"Lily!" he said again.

"No, no, you need not speak; you may go."

Both of them gained a victory.

"After I have gone," he said, "if you think it proper, will you visit
Peter and Maria?"

"Peter and Maria?"

"The friends I found when I left you, who helped me to find a better
self--a self that at last finds _you_."

"I will go."

"To-morrow, then, I will write you of them."

He was gone.

In a few days she received a letter which contained the narrative of
his sojourn with Peter and Maria, and a letter of introduction to
them. She showed the letter to Barclay.

"Shall you meet him there?"

She gave him no answer.

"On what terms are you with yourself?" he continued.

"To answer candidly, bad terms."

"Could you marry that beggar on better