ehind; I should like to show it you--to see
what you make of it."

He rose and from his bureau extracted a note; then he resumed his seat
and tossed me the almost illegible scrawl:--

DEAR LIONEL,--All this time I have been too blessed--too
supremely happy to face the truth. You do not know my real name
nor my grievous history, and the more I love and honour you the
harder becomes the revelation. I can endure it no more--so
good-bye.

"And was that all?"

"Absolutely. I pressed the pansy in the poem, and vowed--such vows are
cheap--never to trust a woman again. But, after all, what claim have we
to view our love as a priceless gift when we invariably demand cent. per
cent. in kind? I have argued this out with myself, and realise that I
was her debtor, I was first an artist whom she had patronised and
then--a man whom she had----"

"Well?"

"I was going to say--ennobled. Don't you think there are some women who,
by power of faith, transmute even clay-footed idols into gold?"

I shook my head and prepared to turn over the leaf, but he made as
though to remove the book.

"That last one is a marguerite. It tells a very bald narrative--just a
common instance of man's blockheadedness and Fate's topsy-turvydom."

Bentham threw aside his cigarette and closed his eyes. He was looking
worn and old.

"I think I have told you all," he continued presently, "except about
these petals. They were gathered from the ground as her fingers shredded
them to discover whether I loved her _passionement_ or _pas du tout."_

"The same person?"

"No, another; she was what is called a coquette--an innocent girl baby,
who played with men's hearts as children probe sawdust dolls--from a
spirit of inquiry. For some silly wager she flirted with a man staying
in the hotel, an uncouth provincial clown whom I ignored. But it
maddened me. I started for the States to accept a commission that had
been offered--that my love for her had held in the balance--and--and I
never saw her alive again."

There was a long pause, during which the clock on the chimney ticked its
forever--never--without remorse. Gradually the synopsis became more
complete, for I could trace the outlines of the buried hours in
Bentham's grey, impassive face. Then he went on as though
soliloquising:--

"Now I return to it, England seems wider--its population smaller. It is
as if we lived in a great silence like that in the rarified atmosphere
of Swis