More than a year had elapsed, and no letter had ever reached him,--not even a message in her two brief epistles to Stanley, and Dr. Grey missed the bright, perverse element that no longer thwarted him at every turn. He longed to see the proud, girlish face, with its flashing eyes, and red lips, and the haughty toss of the large, handsome head; and the angry tones of her voice would have been welcome sounds in the house where she had so long tyrannized. To-day, as Ulpian Grey sat in his own little sitting-room, his eyes were fixed on a copy of Rembrandt's _Nicholas Tulp_, which hung over the mantelpiece; but the mysteries of anatomy no longer riveted his attention, and his thoughts were busy with memories of a fond though wayward girl, whom his indifference had driven to foreign lands,--to unknown and fearful perils. Through the windows stole the breath of Salome's violets, and the sweet, spicy odor of the Belgian honeysuckle that she had planted and twined around the mossy columns that supported the gallery; and with a sigh he closed his eyes, shut out the anatomy of flesh, and began the dissection of emotions. Could Salome's radiant face brighten his home, and win his heart from its devouring regret? Would it be possible for him to give her the place whence he had ejected Mrs. Carlyle? Could he ever persuade himself to call that fair, passionate young thing, that capricious, obstinate, maliciously perverse girl,--his wife? Involuntarily he frowned, for while pity pleaded for the refugee from home and happiness, the man's honest nature scouted all shams, and he acknowledged to himself that he could never feel the need of her lips or hands,--could never insult her womanhood, or degrade his own nature, by folding to his heart one whose touch possessed no magnetism, whose presence exerted no spell over his home. Salome, his friend, his adopted sister, he wished to discover, to claim, and restore to the household; but Salome, his wife,--was a monstrous imaginary incubus that appalled and repelled him. The difficulties that presented themselves at the outset of his search would have discouraged a less resolute temperament, but it was part of his wise philosophy, that-- "We overstate the ills of life. We walk upon The shadow of hills across a level thrown, And pant like climbers." As a pitying older brother, he thought of Salome's many foibles,--of her noble intentions and ignoble executions,--of her few feeble triumphs, her numerous egregious failures in the line of duty; and loving Christian charity pleaded eloquently for her, whispering to his generous soul, "We know the ships that come with streaming pennons into the immortal ports; but we know little of the ships that have taken fire on the way thither,--that have gone down at sea." What pure friendship could accomplish he would not withhold, and life at the farm was not so attractive now that he felt regret at the prospect of temporary absence.