of the street-lamp. She
studied my face with a grave and steady attention before she made any
reply.

"Yes," she said at last. "I think I do know a gentleman when I see him.
You may come, sir, if you please, and call upon me to-morrow."

So we parted. So I entered--doubting nothing, foreboding nothing--on a
scene in my life which I now look back on with unfeigned repentance and
regret.

III.

I AM speaking at this later time in the position of a clergyman, and
in the character of a man of mature age. Remember that; and you will
understand why I pass as rapidly as possible over the events of the
next year of my life--why I say as little as I can of the errors and the
delusions of my youth.

I called on her the next day. I repeated my visits during the days and
weeks that followed, until the shabby little house in the by-street had
become a second and (I say it with shame and self-reproach) a dearer
home to me.

All of herself and her story which she thought fit to confide to me
under these circumstances may be repeated to you in few words.

The name by which letters were addressed to her was "Mademoiselle
Jeromette." Among the ignorant people of the house and the small
tradesmen of the neighborhood--who found her name not easy of
pronunciation by the average English tongue--she was known by the
friendly nickname of "The French Miss." When I knew her, she was
resigned to her lonely life among strangers. Some years had elapsed
since she had lost her parents, and had left France. Possessing a small,
very small, income of her own, she added to it by coloring miniatures
for the photographers. She had relatives still living in France; but
she had long since ceased to correspond with them. "Ask me nothing
more about my family," she used to say. "I am as good as dead in my own
country and among my own people."

This was all--literally all--that she told me of herself. I have never
discovered more of her sad story from that day to this.

She never mentioned her family name--never even told me what part of
France she came from or how long she had lived in England. That she was
by birth and breeding a lady, I could entertain no doubt; her manners,
her accomplishments, her ways of thinking and speaking, all proved it.
Looking below the surface, her character showed itself in aspects not
common among young women in these days. In her quiet way she was an
incurable fatalist, and a firm believer in the ghostly reality of
a