hen
there came a tragedy to overwhelm his training, he had few reserves;
his propriety of demeanor lost, his soul was raw. His very attitude,
as he stood, was eloquent of pain and helplessness. He had been
married a little more than a year, and it seemed now as though that
year stood vignetted on a broad border of sadness.

The fire rustled and clicked as the coals spent themselves. He had a
feeling of chill and faintness, and he went back slowly to his
chair. Seated there again, the silver toys were all round him,
gleaming slyly at him with a sort of suggestiveness. He packed up the
mirror, once more, and looked into the oval glass at it. He was
feeling a little dizzy, these last days had burdened him heavily, and
the afternoon had been a long stress of emotion. Thus, for a space of
minutes he sat, the glass before him, his eyes half closed.

It seemed to him that he must have dozed, for he sat up with the
start of a man who arrests himself on the brink of sleep. The mirror
was in his hand. He stared at it with wide eyes, thrusting it at
arm's length before him. For in it he saw--not a flicker of the
firelight swaying on the wall, but a face that moved across from the
door--the face of his dead wife.

He saw it cross the field of the little mirror, reflected in profile,
and pass beyond it. He sat yet a moment, enthralled in senseless
amazement, then let the glass fall from his outstretched hand, and
turned where he sat.

He sprang to his feet. "Hilda!" he cried. "Hilda!"

Her face welcomed him with a little smile, sober and kind.

"Yes, dear," she said gently; "it is Hilda!"

He did not go to her, but stood staring, and groping for the key to
his understanding. She was about five paces from him--Hilda
undeniably, to the soft contour of her cheek and the shaded gold of
her hair.

He found words: "Are you here with me, Hilda? Or have I gone mad? Or
perhaps I've been mad all along!"

She smiled again, and through the fog of his bewilderment and wonder
he recognized the smile.

"Not mad, dear," she was saying. "Not mad. But it is very strange and
wonderful at first, isn't it?"

"Strange and wonderful?" He put an uncertain hand to his face and
passed it over his eyes. "Something has happened to me," he said. "To
my eyes, I think. Things look strange. And--and there is Hilda!" He
paused. "I'd been longing for Hilda."

She came a step nearer to him then. "I know," she murmured softly. "I
know, dear. But that