It was paralysis. And after months of Nassau, she took him back to the mainland and northward by slow stages, not to Gilead Balm, for he made always "No!" with his head and eyes to that, and not to New York for he seemed impatient of that, too; but at last to Washington. There she and Thomson found a pleasant residence to let on a tree-embowered avenue, and there they moved him, and there she stayed with him two years and read a vast number of books aloud, and between the readings cultivated a sunny talkativeness. At the end of the two years there came a second stroke which killed him. CHAPTER XXVI GILEAD BALM "It's a foolish piece of idealism," said Ralph. "But she's had her way so long I suppose it's impossible now to check her." The Colonel's irritation exploded. White-haired, hawk-nosed and eyed, a little stooped now, a good deal shrunken in his black, old-fashioned, aristocratic clothes, he lifted a bloodless hand and made emphasis with a long forefinger. "Precisely so! One world mistake lay in ever giving property unqualifiedly into a woman's hands, and another in ever encouraging occupations outside the household, and so breeding this independent attitude--an attitude which I for one find the most intolerable feature of this intolerable latter age! I opposed the Married Woman's Property Act in this state, but the people were infatuated and passed it. Married or single, the principle is the same. It is folly to give woman control of any considerable sum of money--" Mrs. LeGrand, entering the Gilead Balm library, caught the last three sentences. She smiled on the two gentlemen and took her seat upon the sofa. "Money and women are you talking about? Where money comes in," said Mrs. LeGrand, "I always act under advice. Women know very little about finance, and their judgment is rarely to be trusted." "Just so, my dear friend! It is not in the least," spoke the Colonel, "that I am acquisitive or that it will make any great difference to me personally if Medway's wealth stays in the family or no. What I am commenting upon is the folly of giving a woman power to do so foolish a thing." "Hagar always _could_ do foolish things," said Miss Serena, looking up from her Mexican drawnwork. "I don't quite understand yet," said Mrs. LeGrand. "Mrs. Ashendyne was telling me in the big room yesterday evening, and then some one came in--dear Medway's will left her without proviso all that he had--" "As was quite proper," said Ralph, "the Colonel to the contrary. Well, the principal comes to considerably over a million dollars--the cool million his second wife left him by her will and the settlement she had already made upon their marriage. The investment is gilt-edged. Altogether it would make Hagar not an extremely rich woman as riches are counted nowadays, but--yes, certainly for the South--a very rich woman. But now comes in your feminine tender conscience--"