mortal sanctuary
of the soul of Mortimer Cranch.

What did I accomplish by spreading all the fruits of my education and my
familiarity with refinement before her? What did I accomplish by my
mastery of mind? I accomplished my undoing! You need not ask how. I will
tell you. I made this healthy, glowing Irish lass believe in the beauty
of character which I insisted she possessed. I made her believe that she
was a noble creature and that she was capable of fine womanly
unselfishness. It was like the influence of the hypnotist. My own
fanciful conception of her, at first described merely to awake in her
the pleasures of admiration, became, when repeated, convincing to
myself. I began to feel sure that she had the rare qualities which I had
ascribed to her. I found myself desperately in love with her--not only
intoxicated by the beauty of her body and the sound of her laugh, but by
real or imagined beauty of character as well. This acted upon her
powerfully. She, too, began to believe. Her capacity for goodness
expanded. A sadness came over her.

"Why are you so thoughtful?" I said to her one midday as we sat together
on a ledge overlooking the peaceful valley.

"Don't ask," she said bitterly, looking at the ground.

Curiosity then drove me mad. For two days I persecuted her with cruel
questions. I believed that some regret for a secret in her past was
troubling her. At last she told me. I believe she told me truly. She
said that she knew that a girl without education and refinement could
have no hope of being taken through life by me. She spoke simply of the
unhappiness it would bring me if I were tied to her.

"Tell me that you love me!" I cried.

She shook her head.

"I am not your equal," she said. "You have been the one who has made me
good, if I am good at all. Didn't you say that I would be capable of any
sacrifice for love?"

"Why, yes," I said.

"Hush," she whispered and laid her hand on mine.

The next day she had disappeared. No one knew when or how or where she
had gone. She had vanished. She left no word. Her room was empty. And
there on the tiled floor, in the sunlight, was the rosette from a
woman's slipper. It spoke of haste, of farewell; it was enough to
convince me that Margaret was not a creature of my imagination. But the
little tawdry decoration, and the faint aroma of her individual
fragrance which still clung to it, was all that was left of her and my
selfish dreams.

I traveled all the