All this took place in the summer of 1861, it will be remembered; and between that time and the period at which we have seen Eleanor Hill kneeling piteously before Nathan Bladesden and afterwards greeting Carlton Brand with such a sympathy of shame and sorrow,--nearly two years had elapsed. During that time Carlton Brand had seemed to gather more and more dislike of the physician, and, as must be confessed, more and more positive fear of him; while Dr. Pomeroy had more than once treated poor Eleanor with positive bodily indignity for daring to receive his visits at all, though he was the last of all her old acquaintances who kept up the least pretence at intimacy. Finally, for months before the June of 1863, the lawyer had ceased to make any visits to the house, except at times when he knew the doctor to be absent; and then he stayed but briefly at each infrequent call, while one of the female servants, who was devoted to Eleanor, had confidential orders from her to keep watch for the sudden coming of the doctor, so that this man, who seemed born to be a Paladin, could skulk away by one door or the other and avoid a meeting! A most pitiable exhibition, truly!--but the record must be made a faithful one, even in this melancholy instance. Since Eleanor Hill's return from her temporary Hegira, for a long period, so far as the eye could see no change had taken place in the relations existing between the "guardian" and his "ward." Perhaps he treated her with more coolness than of old; and she may have been more habitually silent, while she had become a virtual recluse and seldom passed beyond the doors of that fated dwelling. Whatever the weakness which the fact may have shown on her part, whatever of persistent evil on his,--the old intimacy of crime had been maintained, though the love once existing in the breast of the young girl had long changed to loathing, and there was every reason to believe that the ignobler passion urging on her destroyer had quite as long before become satiety.