tangent and treats us to a series of intellectual gymnastics, the
significance of which--so we are called upon to digest--is that the
soul of one dead, finding its present clime too warm--or too cold--or
having left something undone on earth, takes temporary and summary
possession of an unfortunate still in the flesh, and through this
unhappy medium endeavors to work his will. Perhaps that is what is the
matter with me. Pollok, perchance, who died in his flower, thinking
that he had not given the world a big enough pill to swallow, wants to
concoct another dose in my presumably vacant brain. I appreciate
the compliment, but I disdain to be Pollok's mouthpiece: I will be
original or nothing. Besides, it is deuced uncomfortable. And I should
like to know if there is anything in life more bitter than the sense,
even momentary, of loss of self-mastery. Well, as I remarked a few
moments since, the less I think about it the better, considering my
unfortunate peculiarities. I will go and see Miss Penrhyn to-morrow;
that will be sufficiently distracting for the present."




V.


He found her the next day in a pretty morning-room, dressed in a long
white gown, with a single great yellow rose at her throat. She had
a piece of tapestry in her hand, and as she rose to greet him, the
plain, heavy folds of her gown clinging about her, and her dark
hair bound closely around her head with a simplicity that was almost
severe, Dartmouth again felt a humorous sense of having suddenly
stepped into a page of a past century.