as
herself disturbed by what might very easily give offense, and being of a
kindly, even loving disposition, took occasion when next they met to
explain that it was as a girl she had visited Switzerland, and that her
experiences there had been so unfortunate that any allusion which
recalled those days distressed her. This is all that ever passed between
these two on this subject, but is it not enough when we read this
couplet, and mark the combined initials, and recognize them as those of
Carleton Roberts and Ermentrude Taylor? But lest you should doubt even
this evidence of an old-time friendship so intimate that it has almost
the look of a betrothal, I must add one more item of corroborative fact
which came to me as late as last night. In a moment of partial
consciousness, while the nurse hung over her bed, Mrs. Taylor spoke her
first coherent sentence since she fell into a state demanding medical
assistance. And what was that sentence? A repetition of this couplet,
gentlemen, spoken not once but over and over again, till even the nurse
grew tired of listening to it.

'I love but thee,
And thee will I love to eternity.'"

As the last word fell from Mr. Gryce's lips, the District Attorney
muttered a quick exclamation, and sat down heavily in his chair.

"No coincidence that," he cried, with forced vivacity. "The couplet is
too little known."

"Exactly," came from Mr. Gryce in dry confirmation. "Mrs. Taylor, as well
as her friends can judge, is a woman of thirty-five or thirty-eight. If
she went to Switzerland as a girl, this would make her visit coincident,
so far as we can calculate from our present knowledge, with that of
Carleton Roberts. For the surer advancement of our argument, let us say
that it was. What follows? Let the inscription of this label speak for
us. They met; they loved--as was natural when we remember the youth and
good looks of both, and--_they parted_. This we must concede, or how
could the experience have been one she could not recall without a
heart-break. They parted, and he returned home, to marry within the year,
while she--I do not think she married--though I have no doubt she looks
upon herself as a wife and forever bound to the man who deserted her.
Women of her kind think in this way of such matters, and act upon them
too as is shown by the fact that, on following him here, she passed
herself off as a woman separated from her husband. Changing the Miss
before her name to Mr