Septimius, inwardly blaspheming, as secluded men are apt to do when any
interruption comes, and especially when it comes at some critical moment
of projection, left the box as yet unbroached, and said, "Come in."

The door opened, and Robert Hagburn entered; looking so tall and stately,
that Septimius hardly knew him for the youth with whom he had grown up
familiarly. He had on the Revolutionary dress of buff and blue, with
decorations that to the initiated eye denoted him an officer, and
certainly there was a kind of authority in his look and manner, indicating
that heavy responsibilities, critical moments, had educated him, and
turned the ploughboy into a man.

"Is it you?" exclaimed Septimius. "I scarcely knew you. How war has altered
you!"

"And I may say, Is it you? for you are much altered likewise, my old
friend. Study wears upon you terribly. You will be an old man, at this
rate, before you know you are a young one. You will kill yourself, as sure
as a gun!"

"Do you think so?" said Septimius, rather startled, for the queer absurdity
of the position struck him, if he should so exhaust and wear himself as to
die, just at the moment when he should have found out the secret of
everlasting life. "But though I look pale, I am very vigorous. Judging
from that scar, slanting down from your temple, you have been nearer death
than you now think me, though in another way."

"Yes," said Robert Hagburn; "but in hot blood, and for a good cause, who
cares for death? And yet I love life; none better, while it lasts, and I
love it in all its looks and turns and surprises,--there is so much to be