recalled the somewhat different story of Sam and the waiter girl. "I
don't just recollect all about it."

"It seems to me that the stage-driver said something--er, like--maybe
he said it was 'like forgotten music' to him."

Franklin coloured. "The story was an absurdity, like many others about
the West," he said. "But," he brightened, "the stage-driver had never
seen the school-teacher before."

"I don't quite understand," said Mary Ellen coldly. "In my country it
was not customary for gentlemen to tell ladies when they met for the
first time that it was 'like a strain of forgotten music'--not the
first time." And in spite of herself she now laughed freely, feeling
her feminine advantage and somewhat exulting in spite of herself to see
that even here upon the frontier there was opportunity for the
employment of woman's ancient craft.

"Music never forgotten, then!" said Franklin impetuously. "This is at
least not the first time we have met." In any ordinary duel of small
talk this had not been so bad an attack, yet now the results were
something which neither could have foreseen. To the mind of the girl
the words were shocking, rude, brutal. They brought up again the whole
scene of the battlefield. They recalled a music which was indeed not
forgotten--the music of that procession which walked across the heart
of Louisburg on that far-off fatal day. She shuddered, and upon her
face there fell the shadow of an habitual sadness.

"You have spoken of this before, Captain Franklin," said she, "and if
what you say is true, and if indeed you did see me--there--at that
place--I can see no significance in that, except the lesson that the
world is a very small one. I have no recollection of meeting you.
But, Captain Franklin, had we ever really met, and if you really cared
to bring up some pleasant thought about the meeting, you surely would
never recall the fact that you met me upon that day!"

Franklin felt his heart stop. He looked aside, his face paling as the
even tones went on:

"That was the day of all my life the saddest, the most terrible. I
have been trying ever since then to forget it. I dare not think of it.
It was the day when--when my life ended--when I lost everything,
everything on earth I had."

Franklin turned in mute protest, but she continued:

"Because of that day," said she bitterly, "to which you referred as
though it were a curious or pleasant thought, since you say you were
the