haunted by the wrong he accused himself--as it seems to me very
unjustly--of having done her, for it was neither his fault nor hers--it
was Ate.

His unrest soon assumed the form of a burning desire to revisit the
country in which he and my mother had been happier together than perhaps
they ever again were. I had often heard him betray a hankering after a
return to Erewhon, disguised so that no one should recognise him; but as
long as my mother lived he would not leave her. When death had taken her
from him, he so evidently stood in need of a complete change of scene,
that even those friends who had most strongly dissuaded him from what
they deemed a madcap enterprise, thought it better to leave him to
himself. It would have mattered little how much they tried to dissuade
him, for before long his passionate longing for the journey became so
overmastering that nothing short of restraint in prison or a madhouse
could have stayed his going; but we were not easy about him. "He had
better go," said Mr. Cathie to me, when I was at home for the Easter
vacation, "and get it over. He is not well, but he is still in the prime
of life; doubtless he will come back with renewed health and will settle
down to a quiet home life again."

This, however, was not said till it had become plain that in a few days
my father would be on his way. He had made a new will, and left an ample
power of attorney with Mr. Cathie--or, as we always called him,
Alfred--who was to supply me with whatever money I wanted; he had put all
other matters in order in case anything should happen to prevent his ever
returning, and he set out on October 1, 1890, more composed and cheerful
than I had seen him for some time past.

I had not realised how serious the danger to my father would be if he