Then, as the light faded from his eyes, he folded his hands. 'Is it
expiated, O God? Is it expiated?' he murmured. There was no answer
for him on earth.

They buried him as he had directed, and then they sailed away, taking
the old black with them. The castle was left alone; the flowers
bloomed on through the summer, and the rooms held the old furniture
bravely through the long winter. But gradually the walls fell in and
the water entered. The fogs still steal across the lake, and wave
their gray draperies up into the northern curve; but the sedge-gate is
gone, and the castle is indeed Nowhere.




JEANNETTE


Before the war for the Union, in the times of the old army, there had
been peace throughout the country for thirteen years. Regiments
existed in their officers, but the ranks were thin,--the more so the
better, since the United States possessed few forts and seemed in
chronic embarrassment over her military children, owing to the flying
foot-ball of public opinion, now 'standing army pro,' now 'standing
army con,' with more or less allusion to the much-enduring Caesar and
his legions, the ever-present ghost of the political arena.

In those days the few forts were full and much state was kept up; the
officers were all graduates of West Point, and their wives graduates
of the first families. They prided themselves upon their antecedents;