pparitions from the dead. Then again in the matter of money, she had
strange views of her own. Whenever my purse was in my hand, she held me
resolutely at a distance from first to last. She refused to move into
better apartments; the shabby little house was clean inside, and the
poor people who lived in it were kind to her--and that was enough. The
most expensive present that she ever permitted me to offer her was a
little enameled ring, the plainest and cheapest thing of the kind in the
jeweler's shop. In all relations with me she was sincerity itself. On
all occasions, and under all circumstances, she spoke her mind (as the
phrase is) with the same uncompromising plainness.

"I like you," she said to me; "I respect you; I shall always be faithful
to you while you are faithful to me. But my love has gone from me. There
is another man who has taken it away with him, I know not where."

Who was the other man?

She refused to tell me. She kept his rank and his name strict secrets
from me. I never discovered how he had met with her, or why he had left
her, or whether the guilt was his of making of her an exile from her
country and her friends. She despised herself for still loving him; but
the passion was too strong for her--she owned it and lamented it with
the frankness which was so preeminently a part of her character. More
than this, she plainly told me, in the early days of our acquaintance,
that she believed he would return to her. It might be to-morrow, or
it might be years hence. Even if he failed to repent of his own cruel
conduct, the man would still miss her, as something lost out of his
life; and, sooner or later, he would come back.

"And will you receive him if he does come back?" I asked.

"I shall receive him," she replied, "against my own better judgment--in
spite of my own firm persuasion that the day of his return to me will
bring with it the darkest days of my life."

I tried to remonstrate with her.

"You have a will of your own," I said. "Exert it if he attempts to
return to you."

"I have no will of my own," she answered quietly, "where _he_ is
concerned. It is my misfortune to love him." Her eyes rested for a
moment on mine, with the utter self-abandonment of despair. "We have
said enough about this," she added abruptly. "Let us say no more."

From that time we never spoke again of the unknown man. During the year
that followed o ur first meeting, she heard nothing of him directly or
indir