in her own veins
naturally heightened Edith's interest in it. A portrait of Edith
Bartlett and some of her papers, including a packet of my own letters,
were among the family heirlooms. The picture represented a very
beautiful young woman about whom it was easy to imagine all manner of
tender and romantic things. My letters gave Edith some material for
forming a distinct idea of my personality, and both together sufficed
to make the sad old story very real to her. She used to tell her
parents, half jestingly, that she would never marry till she found a
lover like Julian West, and there were none such nowadays.

Now all this, of course, was merely the daydreaming of a girl whose
mind had never been taken up by a love affair of her own, and would
have had no serious consequence but for the discovery that morning of
the buried vault in her father's garden and the revelation of the
identity of its inmate. For when the apparently lifeless form had been
borne into the house, the face in the locket found upon the breast was
instantly recognized as that of Edith Bartlett, and by that fact, taken
in connection with the other circumstances, they knew that I was no
other than Julian West. Even had there been no thought, as at first
there was not, of my resuscitation, Mrs. Leete said she believed that
this event would have affected her daughter in a critical and life-long
manner. The presumption of some subtle ordering of destiny, involving
her fate with mine, would under all circumstances have possessed an
irresistible fascination for almost any woman.

Whether when I came back to life a few hours afterward, and from the
first seemed to turn to her with a peculiar dependence and to find a
special solace in her company, she had been too quick in giving her
love at the first sign of mine, I could now, her mother said, judge for
myself. If I thought so, I must remember that this, after all, was the
twentieth and not the nineteenth century, and love was, no doubt, now
quicker in growth, as well as franker in utterance than then.

From Mrs. Leete I went to Edith. When I found her, it was first of all
to take her by both hands and stand a long time in rapt contemplation
of her face. As I gazed, the memory of that other Edith, which had been
affected as with a benumbing shock by the tremendous experience that
had parted us, revived, and my heart was dissolved with tender and
pitiful emotions, but also very blissful ones. For she who br