His best chance of escape was to reach some seaport, but it took all the efforts of his father and his relatives to rouse him to decide on trying to make for one. Sick at heart, hopeless for the future of the country, all that had made life worth living--ambition, work, love, and even religion, seemed lost. He was practically alone in the world. Those of General Harrison's friends who had not shared the Regicide's doom, were scattered to the four winds, and even if Richard had known of their places of refuge, he had nothing to unite him to them, but the bond of a common sorrow. His own comrades either believed in the accusations that his enemy circulated with such industry against him, or were too busy and too selfish to trouble themselves about a man who was under a cloud. There was no one left alive who had the power to rouse Richard from the torpor that possessed him; the numb misery that had fallen on him when he saw General Harrison die had never again lifted from his heart and brain. Till that day he had never realized how completely the warmth and enthusiasm of General Harrison's character had dominated his own life. While their opinions diverged completely, their feelings were in harmony, or rather the glowing faith and single-hearted idealism of the elder man had illuminated the being of the younger. Now a glory had departed from the earth. Richard's youthful wisdom had often grown impatient of his uncle's wild fancies, or smiled with affectionate mockery on his Utopian dreams; but unconsciously the young man had always measured his own thoughts and actions by the unworldly standard of General Harrison's ideal. He, with all who lived near Harrison, had seemed to catch a reflected gleam of the radiance that shone on his path; now, a light was gone. Where Richard had seen that noble figure treading the path before him, a sudden gulf yawned, the leader had vanished, the path was lost, and the blank fog was around him. The warm clasp was gone, only the memory of the dead hand would be with him to the end.