"I wish I could respect myself as I respect and honor my friend. Eglah, knowing your reticent nature, I am perhaps presumptuous in taking a rash step. There is some trouble that annoys you. Before I go away for such a long, uncertain absence, will you trust me? I may not be able to remove the burden, but I should be glad to share it. Can you tell me what distresses you?" She looked at him steadily, then away at the brooding water, where voices of the night had begun to croon. "Mr. Noel, let us go back; the boat is at the terrace." When they reached the stone stile, she said: "Do you know why father resigned the senatorship?" "He has not confided his reasons to me." "Having known him so long, should you think that his state of health demanded such a step?" "His appearance at present does not indicate any cause for alarm, and you ought not to conjure a spectre with which to frighten yourself." "His physician did the conjuring." She sat down on the stile, and in her strained, sad gaze he measured the depth of her disquietude. "Mr. Noel, if you know any outside circumstances that appear to necessitate or warrant this sudden abandonment of a brilliant senatorial career, I beg you will be once more your old, kind, candid self and tell me. If I understood I could bear it better." "You think your father is perfectly well?" "I cannot see the change he insists has overtaken him of late; can you?" "Yes. Within the year his nervousness and want of equipoise have been apparent, and when the newspapers stated that his 'medical adviser' had recommended rest and Aix-les-Bains I was rejoiced. The atmosphere of Washington is the worst possible for him. When do you sail?" "On the twenty-fifth." "Mrs. Mitchell accompanies you?" "Of course. You scarcely understand what all this means to me. I have no life outside of father's. His political future is my sole horizon. To help, follow close, watch his ascent, was my world. This sudden, inexplicable surrender, this stepping down and back into obscurity and inaction leave me no foothold on coming years, and I feel adrift. Mr. Noel, would it be unreasonable for me to hope that when father returns in vigorous health a Cabinet seat or a foreign mission might be offered him by the Republican party he has served so long, so faithfully?" The wistful pathos of uplifted eyes that searched his stirred all the tenderness of his nature, but he allowed himself no manifestation. "If you anticipate such reward for your father, and then lose it, disappointment would intensify the annoyance. By dismissing the expectation, the charm of surprise will be added to the value of promotion. You have passed the age of soap bubbles, and ought to know that upon political preferment no man can depend with certainty, especially in a republican country." "I shall not, will not, accept defeat. I must be patient until next year, and then, somehow--in some way--we shall recover our kingdom. I am so proud of father--ah, so proud!"