thought her so; or at least I
thought her touching. She was peculiarly agitated. I tried to appear not
to notice it; but suddenly, in the most inconsequent fashion,--it was an
irresistible memory of our little friendship at Havre,--I said to her,
"I do incommode you. You are distressed."

She raised her two hands to her face, and for a moment kept it buried in
them. Then, taking them away,--"It's because you remind me--" she said.

"I remind you, you mean, of that miserable day at Havre?"

She shook her head. "It was not miserable. It was delightful."

"I never was so shocked as when, on going back to your inn the next
morning, I found you had set sail again."

She was silent a moment; and then she said, "Please let us not speak of
that."

"Did you come straight back here?" I asked.

"I was back here just thirty days after I had gone away."

"And here you have remained ever since?"

"Oh, yes!" she said gently.

"When are you going to Europe again?"

This question seemed brutal; but there was something that irritated me
in the softness of her resignation, and I wished to extort from her some
expression of impatience.

She fixed her eyes for a moment upon a small sunspot on the carpet;
then she got up and lowered the window-blind a little, to obliterate
it. Presently, in the same mild voice, answering my question, she said,
"Never!"

"I hope your cousin repaid you your money."

"I don't care for it now," she said, looking away from me.

"You don't care for your money?"

"For going to Europe."

"Do you mean that you would not go if you could?"

"I can't--I can't," said Caroline Spencer. "It is all over; I never
think of it."

"He never repaid you, then!" I exclaimed.

"Please--please," she began.

But she stopped; she was looking toward the door. There had been a
rustling aud a sound of steps in the hall.

I also looked toward the door, which was open, and now admitted another
person, a lady, who paused just within the threshold. Behind her came
a young man. The lady looked at me with a good deal of fixedness, long
enough for my glance to receive a vivid impression of herself. Then
she turned to Caroline Spencer, and, with a smile and a strong foreign
accent,--

"Excuse my interruption!" she said. "I knew not you had company, the
gentleman came in so quietly."

With this she directed her eyes toward me again.

She was very strange; yet my first feeling was that I had seen her
before. Then