ssional. She
came into it for an hour or two at a time now and then, to play or to
give a music lesson.

'Yes,' he repeated; 'I was in love with her. I have never been in love
with any other woman. It seems ridiculous for an old man to say it,
but I am in love with her still. An old man? Are we ever really old?
Our body grows old, our skin wrinkles, our hair turns white; but the
mind, the spirit, the heart? The thing we call "I"? Anyhow, not a day,
not an hour, passes, but I think of her, I long for her, I mourn for
her. You knew her--you knew what she was. Do you remember her playing?
Her wonderful eyes? Her beautiful pale face? And how the hair grew
round her forehead? And her talk, her voice, her intelligence! Her
taste, her instinct, in literature, in art--it was the finest I have
ever met.'

'Yes, yes, yes,' Mrs. Kempton said slowly. 'She was a rare woman. I
knew her intimately,--better than any one else, I think. I knew all
the unhappy circumstances of her life: her horrid, vulgar mother; her
poor, dreamy, inefficient father; her poverty, how hard she had to
work. You were in love with her. Why didn't you marry her?'

'My love was not returned.'

'Did you ask her?'

'No. It was needless. It went without saying.'

'You never can tell. You ought to have asked her.'

'It was on the tip of my tongue, of course, to do so a hundred times.
My life was passed in torturing myself with the question whether I had
any chance, in hoping and fearing. But as often as I found myself
alone with her I knew it was hopeless. Her manner to me--it was one of
frank friendliness. There was no mistaking it. She never thought of
loving me.'

'You were wrong not to ask her. One never can be sure. Oh, why didn't
you ask her?' His old friend spoke with great feeling.

He looked at her, surprised and eager. 'Do you really think she might
have cared for me?'

'Oh, you ought to have told her: you ought to have asked her,' she
repeated.

'Well--now you know why I went away.'

'Yes.'

'When I heard of her--her--death'--he could not bring himself to say
her suicide--'there was nothing else for me to do. It was so hideous,
so unutterable. To go on with my old life, in the old place, among the
old people, was quite impossible. I wanted to follow her, to do what
she had done. The only alternative was to fly as far from England, as
far from myself, as I could.'

'Sometimes,' Mrs. Kempton confessed by-and-bye, 'sometimes I wondered