Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE QUESTION THAT WAS ALWAYS CROPPING OP. WHEN Halsey got back to Westover, he fc mid that Major Carter had returned. The friends met again with sincere pleasure. The major, for a taciturn, undemonstrative man, was quite effusive in his welcome; and the warmth of Halsey's greeting was increased by his concern at the change a few short months had wrought in Carter. Some undermining influence, more rapid in its effects than time, had aged his friend, who was more gaunt and hollow-eyed than when he passed the previous winter in Italy. Halsey knew of old that any allusion to his health was distasteful to the major, so he said nothing; but his face expressed more than he knew, for Carter remarked briefly, — "Another attack lately, but I shall be better now that you are come. It is a terrible thing to be living all alone." Major Carter, a man of about fifty, had in his youth embraced the profession of arms with the enthusiasm of an ardent temperament. He was bred a soldier from boyhood: he said he believed he was born one, and that his first cry was a battle-cry. At any rate, he was devoted to his profession, and had served with chapter{Section 4distinction on the frontier and in Mexico. Then, in the full tide of an honorable career, he was stricken with a painful malady, which forced him to resign his position in the army, and with it all his plans and hopes. Instead of the active, hardy life of a soldier, he was condemned henceforth to an existence of sofas and teas, easy travel, gentle horses, and freedom from sudden emotions and excitements. He submitted to the disappointment without complaint, b'.'t he became a changed man. The world after this bore a different aspect to him, and he assumed a different aspect to the world. The major was a man of sm...