rs on
the same sheet which I held in my hand. Adelaide made my heart ache; von
Francius made tears stream from my eyes. I reproached myself for having
doubted him, but oh, I treasured the proof that he was true! It was the
one tangible link between me, reality, and hard facts, and the misty yet
beloved life I had quitted. My heart was full to overflowing; I must
tell some one--I must speak to some one.

Once again I tried to talk to Stella about Adelaide, but she gazed at me
in that straight, strange way, and said coldly that she preferred not to
speak of "that." I could not speak to Miss Hallam about it. Alone in the
broad meadows, beside the noiseless river, I sometimes whispered to
myself that I was not forgotten, and tried to console myself with the
feeling that what von Francius promised he did--I should touch his hand,
hear his voice again--and Adelaide's. For the rest, I had to lock the
whole affair--my grief and my love, my longing and my anxiety, fast
within my own breast, and did so.

It was a long lesson--a hard one; it was conned with bitter tears, wept
long and alone in the darkness; it was a sorrow which lay down and rose
up with me. It taught (or rather practiced me until I became expert in
them) certain things in which I had been deficient; reticence,
self-reliance, a quicker ability to decide in emergencies. It certainly
made me feel old and sad, and Miss Hallam often said that Stella and I
were "as quiet as nuns."

Stella had the power which I so ardently coveted: she was a first-rate
instrumentalist. The only topic she and I had in common was the music I
had heard and taken part in. To anything concerning that she would
listen for hours.

Meanwhile the war rolled on, and Paris capitulated, and peace was
declared. The spring passed and Germany laughed in glee, and bleeding
France roused herself to look with a haggard eye around her; what she
saw, we all know--desolation, and mourning, and woe. And summer glided
by, and autumn came, and I did not write either to Adelaide or von
Francius. I had a firm faith in him--and absolute trust. I felt I was
not forgotten.

In less than a year after my return to England, Miss Hallam died. The
day before her death she called me to her, and said words which moved me
very much.

"May, I am an eccentric old woman, and lest you should be in any doubt
upon the subject of my feelings toward you, I wish to tell you that my
life has been more satisfactory to me ever