the shadow when the door of the secret chamber opens. Melodies
start from the silence and breathe the haunting measures of some lost
song. Letters, ragged and worn, with the tint of old ivory upon their
eloquent pages, whisper still: "I love you," though the hand that penned
the tender message has long since been folded, with its mate, upon the
quiet heart.

When the world has proved forbidding, when love has been unresponsive,
and friendship has failed, one steals to the secret chamber with a sense
of sanctuary. Past Regret, stern, unyielding, and austere, one goes
silently, having given the password, and enters in.

The fragrant herbs and the rose petals bring balm to the tired heart,
that heart which has loved so vainly, has tried so faithfully, and
failed. The ghosts of dreams, woven in the tapestries that hide the
walls, come back to touch the roughened fingers of the one who followed
out the Pattern, in the midst of blinding tears. All the music that has
soothed and comforted, trembles once more from muted strings. The
work-worn hands, made old and hard by unselfish toil, become fair and
smooth at a lover's kiss of long ago. After an hour in the secret
chamber, when Mnemosyne, singing, brings forth her treasures, one goes
back, serene and fearless, to meet whatever may come.

* * * * *

Margaret came from her secret chamber with a smile upon her lips. In
that one hour, she had finally parted with all bitterness, all sense
of loss. After twenty-five years of heart hunger and disappointment,
she had put it all aside, and come into her heritage of content.

She began to consider Herr Kaufmann again. After all, what was there
to be gained? She might be disappointed in him, or he might be
disillusioned in regard to her. She remembered what a friend had once
told her, years ago.

"My dear," she had said, "there is one thing in my life for which I have
never ceased to be thankful. When I was very young, I fell in love with
a boy of my own age, and our parents, by separating us, kept us from
making a hasty marriage. I did not forget, but later I met a man who was
much better suited to me in every way, whom I liked and thoroughly
respected, and of whom my mother approved. But, secretly, I cherished
this old love until one day a lucky chance brought me face to face with
him. In an instant, the whole thing was gone, and I laughed at my
folly--laughed because I was free. I married the othe