The party at the Folly had broken up at last, and, going the way of all things terrestrial, was already numbered among the pleasures of the have been.

Mrs. Newbold had flitted seaward with little Marianne, her husband, her maid, and a small army of dress-baskets and boxes. The golden glory of July held the gardens and woods, the terraces and parterres, in the spell of midsummer colouring; flinging abroad with generous hand its meed of sunshine, its wealth of fruit, its richness of blossom, its long hours of fullest beauty, when the intense blue heavens above, the smiling earth below, and the very atmosphere of soft delicious haze seemed to palpitate with their own tropical luxuriance.

Mrs. Newbold's island home never looked more enchanting or enchanted than in this "royal month," and yet it was just at this perfected time that stern fashion decreed she should leave it, and seek for pleasure and relaxation within the narrow limits and confined area of George Newbold's yacht. And Esther, with a courage worthy of a better cause, never dreamed of disputing fashion's mandate, but bore with heroic fortitude the thousand and one restrictions entailed upon her by existence in the Deerhound; for even in that most luxurious schooner her convenience had to suit itself to space.

And so, while the Deerhound lay moored at Newport, and Mrs. Esther entertained and was entertained with almost royal splendour, and the long summer days were given up to feasting and amusement, and the long summer nights to dancing and intrigue, the Folly was deserted, its blinds close drawn, its hospitable doors locked and barred; and the roses came to perfection, and ran riot in their wantonness, showering their petals in such lavish prodigality that the garden paths lay strewn and heaped with the crimson and white of their livery.

Even as in ancient Rome a certain youthful emperor, satiated with every guise of amusement, worn out with pleasure and fulfilled desire, buried the companions of his licentiousness beneath an avalanche of rose-leaves, which, as they fell, became their grave-clothes and their pall.

And have we of to-day no likeness to this pagan Heliogabalus? Do not we bury the best-beloved of our past beneath a cere-cloth, formed of the sweet sentiments of forgetfulness; and, turning from their appealing eyes and sadly accusing faces, enter with fresh zest and renewed enthusiasm upon the untried excitements of the hour? Are we, after two thousand years of Christ's humanity, and the awful lessons of Gethsemane and Golgotha, so much less pagan?

Mrs. Newbold had taken Dick Darling with her in her flitting; she had come to have a very true affection for that somewhat crude young lady, for Esther possessed so much of the alchemist's power as to recognise pure gold when she found it; and also Miss Darling's outspoken admiration for Patricia Hildreth acted as a salve to her disappointed and fruitless projects.

To Dick herself the prospect of three weeks or a month at Newport on board the most perfectly appointed yacht of the squadron, with unlimited license to enjoy the passing hour to the full, was, in her own phraseology, "just too most awfully nailing!" She danced and she flirted, the latter in her own half-boyish fashion. She smoked everybody's cigarettes save her own. She won the ladies' single-handed lawn tennis tournament, and sported the prize—a jewelled racket and ball brooch—with frank delight in her own prowess. She drove Freddy Slade's tandem up and down Bellevue Avenue all one morning, and sailed Jack Howard's microscopic cutter out to the Narrows and back in the afternoon.

She was, indeed, as happy as the day was long; like Browning's 'Duchess,' "she loved whate'er she looked on, and her looks went everywhere." And then, oh, happy thought, were there not more worlds to conquer in the immediate future? Did not visions of New London, Shelter Island, Mount Desert, and the Isle of Shoales stretch out in endless perspective before her? What girl could dare to be otherwise than sublimely happy so long as the sea laughed, and the sun shone, and there were such beneficent factors in the scheme of life and Providence as horses, and dogs, and boats, to say nothing of men and boys, who were but the playthings of existence?

And through all those long, luxurious summer days, Mr. Tremain remained in town, returning a curt negative to all alluring invitations.

He had not seen Mrs. Newbold again after his momentous interview with Mademoiselle Lamien; indeed, he had left the Folly immediately after it, walking into New Brighton, and proving but a sorry companion to John Mainwaring, during their journey to New York.

To tell the truth, he felt himself to be somewhat of a traitor to Esther, in that he had permitted himself to become a traitor to the memory of Patricia. He could not quite forget or put from him Esther's earnest words, Esther's eyes filled with tears, and Esther's undeviating fidelity to the love of his youth; that love from which he had now deliberately and by his own act cut himself off for ever. He knew that to Esther he could only appear as the most weak and vacillating of men; his own words rang too clearly in his ears to allow him for one moment to doubt what her judgment upon his action would be.

There are two things no woman can excuse or palliate in a man: disaffection from herself where she has once been the first object of his devotion, or disaffection to an ideal which she has set up as a fetich, and to which unswerving fidelity is expected as a matter of right. Esther had set up in this position the old love of ten years ago that had existed between himself and Patricia; she had, so to speak, dug its dead body from out its unquiet grave, and breathing into it her own vitality and desire, had set herself to work to re-create answering sentiments in his heart. With the impetuosity of woman's nature, which considers no office so legitimately its own as that of binding up broken hearts, and reuniting broken troths, she endeavoured now to re-construct and rehabilitate this passion of his youth, never pausing to reflect upon his attitude in the case, or the probabilities of failure which amounted to certainties.

She had failed, it was true; but that is only half a failure that leaves matters at the point from which they started. There is always room for hope so long as certain premises remain unchanged. Philip was still unbound and unfettered, and Patricia was still Patricia Hildreth. Were not these sufficient foundations on which to build as fancy dictated?

Reflecting on this, and on his own position from Esther's point of view, Mr. Tremain could not but acknowledge that his proposal to Mdlle. Lamien, and their partial engagement, could only be regarded by Esther in the light of direst treachery. Any reasons he might bring to bear in defence of his present situation and the circumstances that had led up to it, would, he knew, be scoffed at and scouted by his staunch little friend. Of what use would it be for him to enter into the physiological side of the question? He could not hope to explain to her the vague, impersonal power that drove him on to this finale. Should he plead that he was not altogether a free agent, and advance in confirmation of this the subtle illusive resemblance of Mdlle. Lamien to another some one, equally shadowy and unreal, he would be met with an incredulous smile, and a suggestion that since he could urge no stronger reason than that of a chance likeness, why need he hesitate to exploiter his delusion? Or why choose AdÈle Lamien's negative unreality, in place of Patricia Hildreth's positive personality?

It would be vain also to remind Esther that not only had Patricia twice deliberately refused him in words, but by open raillery and covert mockery had emphasized those refusals, more times than his pride cared to count. No, Esther would be convinced by none of these things; it was worse than hopeless to expect it of her, and therefore worse than useless to appeal to her. In selecting AdÈle Lamien for his future wife, he had cut himself adrift from his own life, and from the close sympathy and intimacy of those few friends whose affection had made existence worth living.

He realised perfectly that in thus choosing a woman upon whose past lay not only the blight of secrecy but the curse of suspicion, he made that past his own with all its weight of shame and sin, nay, perhaps, even of crime, at which she had so vaguely hinted. He knew now that in that moment of surprise and overmastering passion, when the spell of her music and her presence held him against his will, he had not reasoned, he had not considered. He had let the potency of the moment bear him away; he had, indeed, seen dimly what the outcome must inevitably be, and yet he had allowed himself to drift on with the current, and made no resistance.

His love, his pride, smarting and burning beneath the cool insolence of Patricia's scorn, hurried him on to such a declaration as should be final, and break for ever the bonds of those ten years that had held him so long, and galled him so intolerably. He would be free, and Patricia should see and recognise his freedom and own its justice, even though she laughed gaily and jested mockingly upon it.

It was indeed in this half defined and scarcely acknowledged retaliation, that he now found his chief solace, for the matter of his new engagement cannot be said to have contributed to his happiness. Still, if fate was so untoward as to eliminate all the higher degrees of perfection from his destiny, it was at least something gained to know that he retained the power of wounding one woman through another. It was not the greatest or grandest revenge, nay, it had something pitifully mean and ignoble about it; but it was revenge, and Philip was still human enough not to have mastered that divine perfection, which kisses the hand bearing the rod, and blesses the scourge even while the blows fall.

In the meantime he hugged his secret, and kept his unhappiness to himself; refused to mingle with his own kind, and rarely stirred from out his chambers, except for the daily walk to and from his office, and grew silent, morose, unapproachable.

The July days came and went with lingering, regretful steps; but they brought him no comfort. He grew to hate the long, bright, cruel hours, during which the sun shone so fiercely in the intense blue sky whose wide expanse was unsoftened by cloud or mist; even as he came to loathe the short midsummer nights, with the flooding moonlight and the radiant stars set in the vaulted firmament of God's glory.

No news and no word came to him from Mdlle. Lamien; he had neither seen nor heard from her since their unsatisfactory parting. He had waited expecting each day some expression from her, some recognition or repudiation of the promise that bound him; but each day brought him only disappointment, until at last, as the days grew into weeks, he ceased expecting and accepted his position almost with relief. He was ready and waiting whenever Mdlle. Lamien should signify her need of him; he would not lift a finger to break the slight chain that bound him, but neither would he by act or word rivet that chain closer.

Of Patricia he knew absolutely nothing; not even the echo of her name reached him. That most energetic of society chronicles, Town Optics, was never counted in his literature, though, had he known it, even that authority was silent concerning her movements. She had apparently dropped out of his life as completely as even he could desire; and, as he acknowledged with a bitter smile, she was not likely to vex or trouble him more, in the changed conditions of his future.

Ah, well, let her rest in peace! Patty, his wilful, loving, perverse little Patty, had been dead to him for ten long years.

But with the last week of July, Mr. Tremain aroused himself, and, throwing off his lethargy, hastily packed a light portmanteau and betook himself to a certain landing-stage down in the city's depths; and as the sun set in a harmony of gorgeous splendour over Bowling Green and Castle Garden, making a golden symbol of Trinity's tall spire, and flooding the city with transient beauty, he stood upon the deck of a small steamer, bound for the rocky shores of Maine, and, two days later, had vanished amidst the deep far-stretching pine forests of that eastern state, pitching his tent beside an outlet of wild Hemlock Lake, and lost completely to civilisation in the form of post, or telegraph, or daily paper.