other, I suppose. All death, or
all Kiew sweetmeats.

"I suppose you know what life in Egypt is like. If you have not
tried it yourself, your friends have and can describe it to you. I
will certainly not inflict my impressions upon your friendship. It
would be rather a severe test--perhaps yours would not bear it, and
then I should be sorry.

"Do you know? I like to think that I have a friend in you. I like
to remember the time when you used to talk to me of all your
plans--the dear old time! I would rather remember that than much
which came afterwards. You have forgiven me for all I did, and are
glad, now, that I did it. Yes, I can fancy your smile. You do not
see yourself, Prince Saracinesca, Prince Sant' Ilario, Duke of
Whatever-it-may-be, Lord of ever so many What-are-their-names,
Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, Grandee of Spain of the First
Class, Knight of Malta and Hereditary Something to the Holy See--in
short the tremendous personage you will one day be--you do not
exactly see yourself as the son-in-law of the Signora Lucrezia
Ferris, proprietor of a tourist's hotel on the Lake of Como!
Confess that the idea was an absurdity! As for me, I will confess
that I did very wrong. Had I known all the truth on that
afternoon--do you remember the thunderstorm? I would have saved you
much, and I should have saved myself--well--something. But we have
better things to do than to run after shadows. Perhaps it is as
well not even to think of them. It is all over now. Whatever you
may think of it all, forgive your old friend,

Maria Consuelo d'A."

Orsino read the long letter to the end, and sat a while thinking over
the contents. Two points in it struck him especially. In the first place
it was not the letter of a woman who wished to call back a man she had
dismissed. There was no sentiment in it, or next to none. She professed
herself contented in her life, if not happy, and in one sentence she
brought before him the enormous absurdity of the marriage he had once
contemplated. He had more than once been ashamed of not making some
further direct effort to win her again. He was now suddenly conscious of
the great influence which her first letter, containing the statement of
her parentage, had really exercised over him. Strangely enough, what she
now wrote reconciled him, as it were, with hims