In the quaint little village, time glided softly by on golden-slippered feet, the peaceful monotony broken only by little jaunts to neighboring hamlets, the arrival and departure of the mails, and long, blissful sails on the deep blue sea.  Blanche’s sweet face and gentle ways speedily won the simple hearts of the fisher-folks, and her letters were filled with anecdotes of her village proteges, and their picturesque life.  And a steamer would have been necessary to convey away the floral and aquatic treasures heaped on her by the kindly peasants and their little brown-legged children.

The family would winter abroad, and return to America in the spring for the wedding, which Blanche had decided should take place in June.  June was a lovely month, she thought, past all the uncertainty of spring, and with the glory of summer beyond it.

Some weeks after General Smith’s return to New York, Nesbit Thorne joined his relatives in the pretty Mediterranean village.  The general had found his nephew so changed, so worn in mind and body, that the kindly old soldier became seriously alarmed, and insisted on trying the remedy uppermost in his mind.  He had come, with unswerving faith, to regard the south of France as an unfailing sanitarium, and he took his nephew promptly in hand, and gave him no peace until he consented to go abroad, never leaving him until he had secured his stateroom, and seen him embarked on his voyage.

Thorne went indifferently enough, partly to escape his uncle’s persistence, and partly because all places were alike, all equally wearisome to him.  He cherished also a hope of hearing, through Blanche, some tidings of the woman who still possessed him like a spell.

When he first joined them, Norma’s waning hopes flickered up, in a final effort at revivification, but not for long.  That her cousin should be moody, listless and thoroughly unhinged, did not surprise her, since the trials through which he had recently passed were sufficient to have tried a more robust physique than his.  She set herself to interest and cheer him, and, at first, was in a measure successful; for Thorne—­always fond of Norma, observed her efforts and exerted himself to a responsive cheerfulness, often feigning an interest he was far from feeling, in order to avoid disappointing her.  But as he grew accustomed to her ministrations, the effort relaxed and he fell into gloom and bitterness once more.

There was in the man a sense of wrong, as well as failure.  Life had dealt hardly with him—­the bitterness had been wrung out to him to the very dregs.  In all things—­whether his intentions had been noble or ignoble, he had alike failed.  He could not understand it.  In his eyes, the conduct of the two women whose influence had been potent in his life, while springing from different causes, had resulted in the same effect—­uncompromising hardness toward him.  The diverse properties of the solutions had made no appreciable difference in the crystallization.