“So you have got the Rose ‘that all admire’ transplanted to the conservatories of Rockhold.  Wish you joy of her.  She is a rose without a single thorn, and with a deadly sweet aroma.  Mind what I told you long ago.  It contains the wisdom of ages.  ‘Stillwater runs deep.’  Mind it does not draw in and submerge the peace and honor of Rockhold.  I shall see you at the exhibition, when we can talk more freely over this complication.  If Mrs. Stillwater is to remain as a permanent guest at Rockhold, I shall ask my sister to join me wherever I may be ordered, after my leave of absence has expired.  You see I fully calculate on receiving my commission.”

Cora looked forward anxiously to this meeting with her brother.  Only the thought of seeing him a little sooner than she should otherwise have done could reconcile her to the proposed trip to West Point, where she must be surrounded by all the gayeties of the Military Academy at its annual exercises.

Cora had yielded to her grandfather’s despotic will in going a little into society while they occupied their town house in the State capital.  But she took no pleasure—­not the least pleasure—­in this.

To her wounded heart and broken spirit the world’s wealth was dross and its honors—­vapor!

The only life worth living she had lost, or had recklessly thrown away.  Her soul turned, sickened, from all on earth, to seek her lost love through the unknown, invisible spheres.

She still wore around her neck the thin gold chain, and suspended from it, resting on her bosom, the precious little black silk bag that contained the last tender, loving, forgiving, encouraging letter that he had written to her on the night of his great renunciation for her sake, when he had left all his hard won honors and dignities, and gone forth in loneliness and poverty to the wilderness and to martyrdom.

Oh, she felt she was never worthy of such a love as that; the love that had toiled for her through long years; the love that had died for her at last; the love that she had never recognized, never appreciated; the love of a great hearted man, whom she had never truly seen until he was lost to her forever.

So long as he had lived on earth Cora had cherished a hope to meet him, “sometime, somehow, somewhere.”

But now he had left this planet.  Oh! where in the Lord’s universe was he?  In what immeasurably distant sphere?  Oh! that her spirit could reach him where he lived!  Oh, that she could cause him to hear her cry—­her deep cry of repentance and anguish!

But no; he never heard her; he never came near her in spirit, even in her dreams, as the departed are sometimes said to come and comfort the loved ones left on earth.

During these moods of dark despair Cora was so gloomy and reserved that she seemed to treat her unwelcome guest worse than ever, when, in truth, she was not even seeing or thinking of the intruder.