Horace Chase spent the whole summer at L'Hommedieu, without any journeys or absences. His wife rode with him several times a week; she drove out with Dolly in the phaeton; she led her usual life. Usual, that is, to a certain extent; for, personally, she was listless, and the change in her looks was growing so much more marked that at last every one, save her husband, noticed it. When September came, Chase went to New York on business. He was absent two weeks. When he returned he found his wife lying on the sofa. She left the sofa for a chair when he came in; but, after the first day, she no longer made this effort; she remained on the couch, hour after hour, with her eyes closed. Once or twice, when her husband urged it, she rode out with him. But her figure drooped so, as she sat in the saddle, that he did not ask her to go again. He began to feel vaguely uneasy. She seemed well; but her silence and her pallor troubled him. As she herself was impenetrable--sweet, gentle, and dumb--he was finally driven to speak to Dolly. "You say she seems well," Dolly answered. "But that is just the trouble; she seems so, but she is not. What she needs, in my opinion, is a complete change--a change of scene and air and associations of all kinds. Take her abroad for five or six years, and arrange your own affairs so that you can stay there with her." "Five or six years? That's a large order; that's _living_ over there," Chase said, surprised. "Yes," answered Dolly, "that is what I mean. Live there for a while." Then she made what was to her a supreme sacrifice: "_I_ will stay here. I won't try to go." This was a bribe. She knew that her brother-in-law found her constant presence irksome. "Of course I wouldn't hesitate if I thought it would set her up," said Chase. "I'll see what she says about it." "If you consult her, that will be the end of the whole thing," answered Dolly; "you will never go, and neither will she. For she will feel that you would be sure to dislike it. You ought to arrange it without one syllable to her, and then _do_ it. And if I were you, I wouldn't postpone it too long." "What do you talk that way for?" said Chase, angrily. "You have no right to keep anything from me if you _know_ anything. What do you think's the matter with her, that you take that tone?" "I think she is dying," Dolly answered, stolidly. "Slowly, of course; it might require three or four years more at the present rate of progress. If nothing is done to stop it, by next year it would be called nervous prostration, perhaps. And then, the year after, consumption." Chase sprang up. "How dare you sit there and talk to me of her dying?" he exclaimed, hotly. "What the hell do you mean?" Dolly preserved her composure unbroken. "She has never been very strong. Nobody can know with absolute accuracy, Mr. Chase; but at least I am telling you exactly what I think."