Her daily life had been secluded and monotonous, except in the moments when her cumulating sorrows were so poignant that they drove out monotony. With religious regularity and with tenderest love—as for a wayward unfortunate child—she had written to Helen at Hill-Top, and at the private hospital in which she was now detained, until the physician in charge had requested that she discontinue her letters except at such times as he should advise. Only in the last fortnight, since her mother was beginning slowly to recover strength, had Elise given the slightest heed to her physician’s orders that she herself take some appreciable outdoor exercise and care of her health. Few of the summer visitors stopping at the one hotel of the quiet resort ever had a glimpse of her, for the reason that the cottage taken by Mrs. Phillips was quite removed and secluded. The few friends who did see her remarked upon her loss of flesh and added beauty. Elise was never beautiful after an assertive, flamboyant fashion, but was of that sublimated type of loveliness that, stealing slowly and softly in upon the senses, at last holds them rapt before the Rare Vision: Woman in Excelsis. Now, however, vigils and griefs had touched her face and form with a spirituelle quality not ordinarily possessed by them, and this ethereal effect caught the eye more quickly, and revealed at once the fine and exquisite modelling of her beauty. She had seen and heard very little of Rutledge for half a year. During the remainder of the Washington season after Helen’s marriage was announced she had bravely kept up appearances by missing none of the functions and gayeties that had claim upon her time and interest, and on one or two occasions had been face to face with him and exchanged brief but formal salutations. Since she had been at Virginia Springs an occasional brief press notice of the South Carolina senatorial campaign was all the word she had of him except a couple of lines in a letter from Lola Hazard in May. On the Sunday morning after the Spartanburg meeting, at about the usual hour of eleven o’clock, the boy brought the Washington papers. As Elise sat down in the shadow of the porch and unfolded _The Post_ she experienced the most acute sensations of interest that had stirred her for months. Over and again she read that Mr. Rutledge had neither "the honour nor the hope to be engaged to" her. After the first surprise, came anger. The publicity was very offensive; and, beyond that, the denial itself was to be resented. As she understood it, no gentleman has the right to deny an engagement to any _lady_—that was the woman’s privilege: and for the man’s denial to savour of meeting an accusation—unpardonable!