desire of the past year had been fulfilled, and its memory sparkled in
her brain, and her heart was lighter. It had been hours before she had
ceased to feel the pressure of his arms.

She wondered how she could have been so weak as to think of marrying
Burleigh in self-defence, and she punished him by an indifference of
manner which approached frigidity; until one of the evening journals
copied a bitter attack upon him from the leading newspaper of his
State, when she relented and permitted him to console himself in her
presence. And although, as the weeks passed and she saw Senator North
from the gallery of the Senate only, or for a few impersonal moments
in the crowd, and the elixir in her veins lost its strength, still she
felt that life was sufferable once more. She had endeavoured to put
Mrs. North from her mind, but more than once she caught herself
wishing that some one would mention her name. Nobody did in those
excited days, and Betty had no means of learning whether her sudden
good health had been final or temporary. Sally Carter did not allude
to her again. When she and Betty met, it was to wrangle on the Cuban
question, for Miss Carter was all for war.

And then one day the newsboys shrieked in the streets that the
_Maine_ had been blown up in Havana Harbor.

For a few days Congress held its peace, and the country showed a
praiseworthy attempt to believe in the theory of accident or to wait
for full proof of Spanish treachery. The _Maine_ was blown up on
Tuesday, and on Thursday night at the Madisons' the subject almost was
avoided; it was the most peaceful _salon_ Betty had held.

But it was merely the calm before the storm. The fever was still in