even insensible pain, have seldom been submitted for medical
inspection by even the fairest patient desiring a prescription of
unfamiliar scenes.

The outcome of it was that of these two odd persons having equally
odd notions of duty, the one went to California, as the interest of
his client required, and the other remained at home in compliance
with a wish that her husband was scarcely conscious of entertaining.

While in San Francisco Halpin Frayser was walking one dark night
along the water front of the city, when, with a suddenness that
surprised and disconcerted him, he became a sailor. He was in fact
"shanghaied" aboard a gallant, gallant ship, and sailed for a far
countree. Nor did his misfortunes end with the voyage; for the ship
was cast ashore on an island of the South Pacific, and it was six
years afterward when the survivors were taken off by a venturesome
trading schooner and brought back to San Francisco.

Though poor in purse, Frayser was no less proud in spirit than he had
been in the years that seemed ages and ages ago. He would accept no
assistance from strangers, and it was while living with a fellow
survivor near the town of St. Helena, awaiting news and remittances
from home, that he had gone gunning and dreaming.

III

The apparition confronting the dreamer in the haunted wood--the thing
so like, yet so unlike his mother--was horrible! It stirred no love
nor longing in his heart; it came unattended with pleasant memories
of a golden past--inspired no sentiment of any kind; all the finer