"Why, letters are occasionally lost in the mail! But, Rule, how was it that you never heard of all the amazement and confusion that followed your flight, for the want of your letter to explain it?"
"Because, dear, from the time I left the State capital to this day I have never seen a newspaper or spoken to a civilized being."
"Rule!"
"It is true, dear! Look at me. Have I not degenerated into a savage?"
"No, no, no, Regulas Rothsay! you could never do that! Ah! how much nobler you look to me in that rude forest garb than ever in the fine dress of the drawing room! But tell me about your journey from the city into the wilderness, and of your life since."
"I have been trying to do so, Cora, but every time I try to begin my narrative by reverting to the hour of my flight, I seem spellbound to that hour and cannot escape from it. But I will try again," he said, and he began his story.
He told her, in brief, that on leaving the Rockhold house and going out upon the sidewalk, he found the streets still alight with illuminated houses and alive with the orgies of revelers who had come to the inauguration.
In moving through the crowd he was unrecognized, for who could suspect the black-coated figure passing alone along the street at midnight to be the governor-elect of the State, in whose honor the assembled multitudes were getting drunk?
His first intention had been to take a hack, drive to the railway depot, and board the first train going West. But the hacks were all engaged as sleeping berths by men who could not get accommodations in any of the houses of the overcrowded city.
So he set off to walk, and almost immediately came face to face with old Scythia, the friend of his childhood.