all men. I should like to go off to the desert, and live quite alone, if it were not for my painting. That keeps me to the cities. But I must live there in obscurity. Do you understand?"
"Not exactly; but still, I see your present mood. I hope heartily it will soon pass. At your age one recovers from any shock, if one has health and a well-balanced mind. You certainly have one; you should, as your father's child, have the other."
"I am afraid I have not," said Elizabeth, rising, and pushing back the hair from her pale face. "I hope it may regain its balance; at present all seems weighed down to one side—deep in the trough of the sea! Good-bye. Write to my uncle. Say all you can to tranquillize him. I am not so mad as I seem. Tell him that. You shall hear from me as soon as ever I am settled."
She shook his hand warmly, passed swiftly through the outer office, and downstairs, without observing the face of the young man who made way for her to pass him.
She with her maid took the mail-train to Paris that night.
