ow, herself more rosy, and
they kissed each other quite unaffectedly.

The Man Above the Square, when his memory reached this point, let the
ebony poker slide from his grasp. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "her name was
really Madeline!"

Again he looked into the fire. "Could the ashes have been preserved if
Madeline had not given the matter her personal attention, but had
trusted to a housemaid?" he thought. What further reflections this
question inspired must be left to conjecture. He did not speak again.

But presently he got up, went to his desk, and wrote a letter. He was
a long time about it, consulting frequently with the fire and smiling
now and then. When it was done he took it at once to the elevator to
be mailed. Perhaps he thought it unsafe to wait the turning of the
mood.

[Illustration]

_The Vacant Room in Drama_

I am content to let Mr. John Corbin sing the praises of the stage
without scenery; I prefer to sing the praises of the stage without
actors. Ever since I was a little boy, nothing in the world has been
for me so full of charm and suggestiveness as an empty room. I
remember as vividly as though it were week before last being brought
home from a visit somewhere, when I was four years old, and arriving
after dark. My mother had difficulty in finding the latch-key in her
bag (I have since noted that this is a common trait of women), and
while the search was going on I ran around the corner of the house and
peered in one of the low windows of the library. The moonlight lay in
two oblong patches on the floor; and as I pressed my nose against the
pane and gazed, the familiar objects within gradually emerged from the
gloom, as if a faint, invisible light were being turned slowly up by
an invisible hand. Nothing seemed, however, as it did by day, but
everything took on a new and mysterious significance that bewildered
me. I think it must also have terrified me, for I recall my father's
carrying me suddenly into the glare of the hall, and saying, "What's
the matter with the boy?" And to-day I cannot enter a theatre, even at
the prosaic hour of ten in the morning, when the chairs are covered
with cloths and maids are dusting, when the house looks very small and
the unlit and unadorned stage very like a barn, without a thrill of
imaginative pleasure. I have even mounted the stage of an empty
theatre and addressed with impassioned, soundless words the dee