The signs, the ladies said, dated from the arrival of at “Powhatan,” the country seat of the Mayo family, just below Richmond, of a fair guest—­Miss Louisa Patterson, of Philadelphia.  This lady was no longer young, according to the severe standards of that time of early marriages and correspondingly early “old-maidenhood,” but so much the better, as she was therefore of suitable age for the elderly though spruce and prosperous widower.  She was, withal, a decidedly personable woman with the elegant manners and conversation of the inner circles of the exclusive, stately society in which she had been nurtured—­just the woman, the fair prophetesses said, to rule over John Allan (for everybody knew that a man who ruled his first wife was invariably ruled by his second) and to preside with distinction and taste over his drawing-room and his board.  She was as suitable, in fact for the wife of ripe age as the flower-like Frances had been for the wife of youth.  So Richmond gave its unqualified approval.

Nothing could have been more out of harmony with the sound of the “mellow wedding bells” pealing for this happy pair, than a reminder of the first wife of the bridegroom in the shape of a letter from Edgar Poe.

When Poe had entered West Point his foster-father had drawn a long breath of relief.  He believed that the idle youth with whom his dead wife had been so strangely infatuated was off his hands for good and all.  When the letter came to jar upon his new dream of love he was irritated, and in his brief mention of the matter to his bride it was very apparent, and left upon her mind the impression that Frances Allan must have been a weak and silly creature indeed, to have fancied an idle, ungrateful boy who spent his time drinking, gambling and scribbling ridiculous poetry. And the son of an actress! It would have been impossible for such a low character and herself to have remained under the same roof for a day, she was sure, and she told her husband so—­imparting to her tone somewhat of the pity she felt to think of his having been yoked for years to such a morally frail specimen of womanhood as she conceived the first Mrs. Allan to have been.

So Mr. Allan’s letter of refusal to help Edgar escape the life that was growing more and more irksome to him was as decided as it was brief.  But Edgar was unshaken in his resolve to get away as soon as possible.  In the meantime, finding no outlet for his restless creative faculty that would not remain inactive though there was no opportunity for its satisfaction, he gave himself over by turns, to deepest dejection and wildest hilarity.

Finally, as no other relief was at hand, he decided to force his discharge by deliberate and systematic neglect of the rules.  The plan succeeded so well that before the session was out he was expelled from the Academy for disobedience of orders and failure to attend roll-calls, classes and guard-duty.

CHAPTER XVII.