moment were not many paces from it.

"See what?" urged the Curator with an accent one might almost call
tender--would have been called tender, if used in addressing a woman.

"See _her_, that dead girl!--constantly--at night when my eyes are
shut--in the daytime while I go about my affairs, here, there and
everywhere. The young, young face! so white, so still, so strangely and
so unaccountably familiar! Do you feel the same? Did she remind you of
anyone we know? I grow old trying to place her. I can say this to you;
but not to another soul could I speak of what has become to me a sort of
blind obsession. She was a stranger. I know of no Madame Duclos and am
sure that I never saw her young daughter before; and yet I have started
up in my bed more than once during these past few nights, confident that
in another moment memory would supply the clue which will rid my mind of
the eternal question as to where I have seen a face like hers before? But
memory fails to answer; and the struggle, momentarily interrupted, begins
again, to the destruction of my peace and comfort."

"Odd! but you must rid yourself of what unnerves you so completely. It
does no good and only adds to regrets which are poignant enough in
themselves."

"That is true; but--stop a minute. I see it now--her face, I mean. It
comes between me and the house there. Even your presence does not dispel
it. It is--no, it's gone again. Let us go back once more and take another
look at the sea. It is the one thing which draws me away from this
pursuing vision."

They resumed their stroll, this time away from the house and toward the
oval cut in the trees for a straight view out to the sea. Across this
oval a ship was now sailing which attracted the eyes of both; not till it
had passed, did the Curator say:

"You live too lonely a life. You should seek change--recreation--possibly
something more absorbing than either."

"You mean marriage?"

"Yes, Roberts, I do. Pardon me; I want to see your eye beam again with
contentment. The loss of your late companion has left you desolate, more
desolate than you have been willing to acknowledge. You cannot replace
her----"

"I am wedded to politics."

"An untrustworthy jade. When did politics ever make a man happy?"

"Happy!" They were turned toward the house again. When near, Roberts
capped his exclamation with the remark:

"You ask a great deal for me, more than you ask for yourself. You have
not married again."