Dennis's brow grew very dark, and in bitter soliloquy he said, half aloud, as he strode up and down his little room in great agitation: "And so it all ends! The girl at whose side my mother would have watched in the most dangerous and loathsome of diseases; the woman of ice whom I sought to melt and render human by as warm, true love as ever man lavished on one who rewarded his affection--this beautiful monster will not even visit my mother when dying; she holds a revel on the day of the funeral; and now, through her influence no doubt, I am robbed of the chance of winning honest bread. She cannot even endure the sight of the man who once told her the unvarnished truth. Poor as you deem me, Christine Ludolph, with God's help not many years shall pass before it will be condescension on my part to recognize you." He would not even go to the store again. The Bruders, having heard what had occurred, took Ernst away also; but Dennis soon found him a better situation elsewhere. The day on which Dennis returned, Christine was speeding in a palace-car toward the Rocky Mountains, outwardly gay, determined to enjoy herself and carry out her reckless purpose to get the most possible out of life, cost what it might. If she had been a shallow girl, thoughtless and vain, with only mind enough to take in the events of the passing moment, she might have bought many fleeting pleasures with her abundant wealth. But this she was not, with all her faults, and wherever she went, in the midst of gayest scenes, and in the presence of the grandest and most inspiring scenery, thought and memory, like two spectres that no spell could lay, haunted her and robbed her of peace and any approach to happiness. Though possessing the means of gratifying every whim, though restrained by no scruples from doing what she chose, she felt that all around were getting more from life than she. During her absence she experienced a sudden and severe attack of illness. Her friends were much alarmed about her, and she far more about herself. All her old terror returned. In one respect she was like her mother; she had no physical courage, but shrank with inexpressible dread from danger, pain, and death. Again the blackness of darkness gathered round her, and not one in the gay pleasure party could say a word to comfort her. She recovered, and soon regained her usual health, but her self-confidence was more thoroughly shaken. She felt like one in a little cockle-shell boat out upon a shoreless ocean. While the treacherous sea remained calm, all might be well, but she knew that a storm would soon arise, and that she must go down, beyond remedy. Again she had been taught how suddenly, how unexpectedly, that storm might rise.