“Oh, sir, if you marry Rosalind, Charley will not strive for the miserable money. We have been happy without it for more than a year. But--but--I prophesy that you will never marry Rosalind, because you will learn, before it is too late, that she is unworthy of you!” He frowned, and said: “Nay, you have already wronged Rosalind enough; let her name rest. She will surely be my bride.” Berenice sighed and held out her hand, replying: “If I believed that, I should be very sorry for you, sir. But I must be going now. My poor boy is wearying for me this long time. Tell me, do you forgive him? May he come to-morrow?” “He may come to-day. I am too impatient to wait,” the senator cried, with a sudden outburst of tenderness. CHAPTER XXXII. AN OLD FOOL. September slipped into October and Miss Montague returned home again from Bar Harbor, where she spent the summer. Up at the hall it was very gay, for she was entertaining a house party of her friends, to all of whom it was well known that her trousseau was being made ready, and that before Christmas she was to be married to the multimillionaire, Senator Bonair. But latterly Rosalind, although outwardly gay, was inwardly disturbed and uneasy, for in nearly two months she had no letter from her elderly betrothed, and became alarmed lest he should slip through her fingers. In the absence of her betrothed she had consoled herself by flirting, in which she was an adept, and managed, on the whole, to pass away time very pleasantly. There was one man who had danced attendance on her all summer, a handsome, dark-eyed, jealous fellow, that she preferred to any other, and she said to herself that she would keep him dangling on, till the senator came home, then, she would have to dismiss him for good. He was desperately in earnest, she knew, and she sometimes shuddered, wondering what he would do when he was given his congé. She would not be surprised in the least if he committed suicide; but if he chose to be such a fool, how could she help it? Now that October was nearing its end, a vague uneasiness began to possess her, for it was quite two months since Senator Bonair had written, and she wondered at his strange silence, and that he did not return home. Of the two daughters who had gone abroad on a bridal tour around the world, she also heard nothing. The silence was puzzling, annoying. Not even the ubiquitous newspapers seemed to know anything of the great man’s whereabouts. “It looks bad, and I do not know what to make of it,” she said to her mother uneasily. “Have you written him?” “Several times, and as the letters are not returned he must have received them, so his silence is hard to understand.”