In consequence of his rigorous life, I saw little of him.  Though urged by Alice, he did not come to our house, and we rarely met him elsewhere.  People called him eccentric, but as he was of a rich family he could afford to be, and they felt no slight by his neglect.

There was a change everywhere.  The greatest change of all was in Charles.  From the night of the sleigh-ride his manner toward me was totally altered.  As far as I could discern, the change was a confirmed one.  The days grew monotonous, but my mind avenged itself by night in dreams, which renewed our old relation in all its mysterious vitality.  So strong were their impressions that each morning I expected to receive some token from him which would prove that they were not lies.  As my expectation grew cold and faint, the sense of a double hallucination tormented me—­the past and the present.

The winter was over.  I passed it like the rest of Rosville, going out when Alice went, staying at home when she stayed.  It was all one what I did, for my aspect was one of content.

Alice alone was unchanged; her spirits and pursuits were always the same.  Judging by herself, if she judged at all, she perceived no change in us.  Her theory regarding Charles was too firm to be shaken, and all his oddity was a matter of course.  As long as I ate, and drank, and slept as usual, I too must be the same.  He was not at home much.  Business, kept him at the mills, where he often slept, or out of town.  But the home machinery was still under his controlling hand.  Not a leaf dropped in the conservatory that he did not see; not a meal was served whose slightest detail was not according to his desire.  The horses were exercised, the servants managed, the children kept within bounds; nothing in the formula of our daily life was ever dropped, and yet I scarcely ever saw him!  When we met, I shared his attentions.  He gave me flowers; noticed my dress; spoke of the affairs of the day; but all in so public and matter-of-fact a way that I thought I must be the victim of a vicious sentimentality, or that he had amused himself with me.  Either way, the sooner I cured myself of my vice the better.  But my dreams continued.

“I miss something in your letters,” father complained.  “What is it?  Would you like to come home?  Your mother is failing in health—­she may need you, though she says not.”

I wrote him that I should come home.

“Are you prepared,” he asked in return, “to remain at home for the future?  Have you laid the foundation of anything by which you can abide contented, and employed?  Veronica has been spending two months in New York, with the family of one of my business friends.  All that she brings back serves to embellish her quiet life, not to change it.  Will it be so with you?”

I wrote back, “No; but I am coming.”

He wrote again of changes in Surrey.  Dr. Snell had gone, library and all, and a new minister, red hot from Andover, had taken his place.  An ugly new church was building.  His best ship, the Locke Morgeson, was at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, he had just heard.  Her loss bothered him, but his letters were kinder than ever.