ot go home that night till the spring dawn was in
the sky. Catherine was sleepless with anxiety about him. When she
heard him come up the stairs, she opened her door and peeped out.
Roger went along the hall without seeing her. His brilliant eyes
stared straight before him, and there was something in his face that
made Catherine steal back to her bed with a little shiver of fear. He
looked like his uncle. She did not ask him, when they met at
breakfast, where or how he had spent the night. He had been dreading
the question and was relieved beyond measure when it was not asked.
But, apart from that, he was hardly conscious of her presence. He ate
and drank mechanically and voicelessly. When he had gone out,
Catherine wagged her uncomely grey head ominously.

"He's bewitched," she muttered. "I know the signs. He's seen her--drat
her! It's time she gave up that kind of work. Well, I dunno what to
do--thar ain't anything I can do, I reckon. He'll never marry now--I'm
as sure of that as of any mortal thing. He's in love with a ghost."

It had not yet occurred to Roger that he was in love. He thought of
nothing but Isabel Temple--her lovely, lovely face, sweeter than any
picture he had ever seen or any ideal he had dreamed, her long dark
hair, her slim form and, more than all, her compelling eyes. He saw
them wherever he looked--they drew him--he would have followed them to
the end of the world, heedless of all else.

He longed for night, that he might again steal to the grave in the
haunted grove. She might come again--who knew? He felt no fear,
nothing but a terrible hunger to see her again. But she did not come
that night--nor the next--nor the next. Two weeks went by and he had
not seen her. Perhaps he would never see her again--the thought filled
him with anguish not to be borne. He knew now that he loved
her--Isabel Temple, dead for eighty years. This was love--this
searing, torturing, intolerably sweet thing--this possession of body
and soul and spirit. The poets had sung but weakly of it. He could
tell them better if he could find words. Could other men have loved at
all--could any man love those blowzy, common girls of earth? It seemed
impossible--absurd. There was only one thing that could be loved--that
white spirit. No wonder his uncle had died. He, Roger Temple, would
soon die too. That would be well. Only the dead could woo Isabel.
Meanwhile he revelled in his torment and his happiness--so madly
commingled th