He repeated the promise of her last scrawled message. He leaned heavily against the mantel, his eyes burning with an unusual brightness.
"Oh, Jean, darling," he groaned, "if you see and hear and know, let me feel your presence! Your dear eyes are softer and kinder than the world's to-night. Help me, I'm alone, heartsick and broken!"
He choked down a sob, walked back to the chair and sank in silence. His eyes were staring into space, his imagination on fire, passing in stern review the events of his life. How futile, childish and absurd it all seemed! What a vain and foolish thing its hope and struggles, its dreams and ambitions! What a failure for all its surface brilliance! He was standing again at the window behind the dais of the President of the Senate, watching the little drooping figure of the Governor staggering away into oblivion, and his heart went out to him in a great tenderness and pity. He longed to roll back the years that he might follow the impulse he had felt to hurry down the steps of the Capitol, draw the broken man into a sheltered spot, slip his arms about him and say:
"Who am I to judge? You're my brother—I'm sorry! Come, we'll try it again and help one another!"
The dream ended in a sudden start. He had heard the rustle of a dress at the door and knew without lifting his head that she was in the room.
Only the slightest sound had come from her dry throat, a little muffled attempt to clear it of the tightening bands. It was scarcely audible, yet his keen ear had caught it instantly, not only caught the excitement under which she was struggling, but in it the painful consciousness of his hostility and her pathetic desire to be friends.
He rose trembling and turned his dark eyes on her white uplifted face.
A feeling of terror suddenly weakened her knees. He was evidently not angry as she had feared. There was something bigger and more terrible than anger behind the mask he was struggling to draw over his mobile features.
"What has happened, major?" she asked in a subdued voice.
