nd! the kind words sounded like mockery. Sleep to me, always
chary of her presence, was at best but a fair-weather friend, instantly
deserting me when pain or exhaustion made me crave the more for rest and
forgetfulness; but I had something to do in the interim--a little
_auto-da-fe_ to perform, by which, with that faith in ceremonial, so
deep laid in human nature, I meant once for all to lay the ghost that
haunted me--the ghost of a delightful but irrevocable past, with which
I had dallied too long.

Sitting before the wood-fire I slowly unfolded them: the three
faintly-perfumed sheets with the gilt monogram above the pointed
writing:

"Dear Mr. Lyndsay," ran the first, "why did you not come over
to-day? I was expecting you to appear all the afternoon.--Yours
sincerely, G.E.L."

The second was dated four weeks later--

"You silly boy! I forbid you ever to write or talk of yourself in
such a way again. You are not a cripple; and if you had ever had a
mother or a sister, you would know how little women think of such
things. How many more assurances do you expect from me? Do you wish
me to propose to you again? No, if you won't have me, go.--Yours,
in spite of yourself, GLADYS."

The third--the third is too long to quote entire; besides, the substance
is contained in this last sentence--

"So I think, my dear Mr. Lyndsay, for your sake more than my own,
our engagement had better be broken off."

In this letter, dated six weeks ago, she had charged me to burn all that
she had written to me, and as yet I had not done so, shrinking from the
sharp unreasonable pain with which we bury the beloved dead. But the
time of my mourning was accomplished. I tore the paper into fragments
and dropped them into the flames.

It must have been the pang with which I watched them darken and shrivel
that brought back the memory of another sharp stab. It was that day ten
years ago, when I walked for the first time after my accident. Supported
by a stick on one side, and by Atherley on the other, I crawled down the
long gallery at home and halted before a high wide-open window to see
the sunlit view of park and woods and distant downland. Then all at
once, ridden by my groom, Charming went past with feet that verily
danced upon the greensward, and quivering nostrils that rapturously
inhaled the breath of spring and of morning. I said: "George, I want
_you_ to have Charming." And i