“Put it on the stand by the bed, dear.  I will take it presently.  Thank you very much, dear Cora.  Now will you please close all the shutters and make the room as dark as a vault—­and shut me up in it—­I shall go to sleep—­and wake up relieved.  The pain goes as suddenly as it comes, dear,” said Rose, still in a faint, faltering and hesitating voice.

Cora did all her bidding, put the tassel of the bell cord in her reach, and softly left the room.

The chamber was not as dark as a vault, however.  Enough of light came through the slats of the shutters and the white lace curtains to enable Rose to rise, take the medicine from the stand, cross the floor and pour it in the wash basin, under a spigot.  Then she turned on the water to wash it down the drain.  Then she turned off the water and went back to bed—­not to sleep—­for she had too much need to think.

Had the minister in that pulpit recognized her, as she had certainly recognized him?  She hoped not.  She believed not.  As soon as she had heard the voice—­the voice that had been silent for her so many years—­she had impulsively looked up.  And she had seen him!  A specter from the past—­a specter from the grave!  But his eyes were fixed upon the book from which he was reading, and she quickly dropped her head before he could raise them.  No; he had not seen her.  But oh! if she had heard his name before she had gone to hear him preach, nothing on earth would ever have induced her to go into the church.  But she had not heard his name at all.  She had heard of him only as the Dean of Olivet.  He was not a dean in those far-off days when she saw him last; only a poor curate of whose stinted household she had grown sick and tired.  But he was now Dean of Olivet!  He had come to make a tour of the United States.  Should she have the mischance to meet him again?  Would he go up to West Point for the exercises at the military academy?  But of course he would!  It was so convenient to do so.  West Point was so near and easy to see.  The trip up the Hudson was so delightful at this season of the year.  And the dean was bound to see everything worth seeing.  And what was better worth seeing by a foreigner than the exercises at our celebrated military academy?  What should she do to avoid meeting, face to face, this terrible phantom from the grave of her dead past?

She could make no excuse for remaining in New York while her party went up to West Point—­make no excuse, that is, which would not also make trouble.  And it was her policy never to do that.  She thought and thought until she had nearly given herself the headache which before she had only feigned.  At length she decided on this course:  To go to West Point with her party, and as soon as they should arrive to get up a return of her neuralgic headache, as her excuse for keeping her room at the hotel and absenting herself from the exercises at the academy.

As soon as she had formed this resolution she got up, opened one of the windows, washed and dressed herself and went out into the parlor.