There must be no shortcoming here, Bingham."
Bingham, standing beside him at the window, fixed an intent regard upon
the sheets of shifting slate. There was a moist smile in his eyes, and a
warm glow of sympathetic appreciation permeated his whole being.
"There won't be," he said.
And Jane's chamber took on shape and finish in the minds of the two men
who stood there side by side overlooking the slate piles and saying no
word further; and neither recognized in her the first cause of all these
changes and of the many trials and difficulties proceeding from them.
XX
The approaching completion of the new house did little towards
diminishing the rigors of the daily routine within the old one; no
greater insistence upon detail could be encountered at Gibraltar or at
Ehrenbreitstein than that which prevailed under the direction of Eliza
Marshall, to whom the near breaking of camp was no reason for the
slightest break in discipline. Nor was there any relaxation because the
garrison happened to be on a mere peace footing; it made little
difference that both Rosamund and Truesdale were spending the better part
of the summer in Wisconsin. Rosy had resumed her round among the
country-houses of her friends; she expected to repay these attentions
in the near future by an elegant and lavish hospitality, whose time,
place, and method still remained more or less indeterminate. Truesdale,
too, had made a second and longer excursion northward--Waukesha, Geneva,
Oconomowoc, and again, Madison.
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