full confession. You shake your head? Is
it true--I swear it is! This man had entirely escaped my memory. Why, I
never loved him! It was in some part a childish folly, but principally
pity and perhaps little caprice on the part of a bored and lonely
woman. My heart had not the smallest part in it. He was given up by the
doctors, they thought he might die any day--in such a case one gives
oneself is one would offer him a cup of tisane--the action of a Good
Samaritan."

"Your defense," he said grimly, as he freed himself from her grasp, "is
far worse than any reproach I might bring against you. You never loved
him? Your heart had no part in this childish folly? That makes it all
the uglier--then it becomes unpardonable. Love alone could extenuate
such a fault to some degree."

He turned to leave the room, but she threw herself upon him and clung
to him.

"You are right--quite right, darling," her voice half-choked with
terror and excitement; "but forgive me--forgive me for the sake of my
love to you. That story belongs to the past, and the past is
buried--buried forever. I cannot believe myself that it is not all a
hideous dream--that it should be really true! It was not I--it was
another woman, a stranger whom I do not know--with whom I have nothing
in common. I was not alive then--I have only lived since you were mine.
Oh, why did you come so late?" And her wild, passionate words sank into
heartrending sobs.

He could not but be sorry for her. Was it wise, was it fitting to rake
up the past? Had he any right to call her to account for faults which
were not committed against him? She was good and pure now. She had not
broken faith with him--not even in her thoughts--for she had no eyes
for anybody in the world but him! He held out his hand to her.

"I will forget what I heard to-day," he said, "and do not let us ever
speak again of what has been."

He was quite sincere in saying this, for he really wished to forget.
But our memory is not subject to our will. Do what he would, he could
not banish the consumptive poet from his mind, nor the diplomat with
the silly, handsome face, and other figures more shadowy than these
two, but none the less annoying. He learned to know that most torturing
form of jealousy--the jealousy of the past--against which it is
hopeless to struggle, which will not be dispelled, and which, in its
unalterable steadfastness, mocks at the despair of the heart that is
forever searching after