and folds, which looked strangely out of harmony with the almost
youthful appearance of the rest of his face. As to his other features,
the mouth, so far as his beard and mustache permitted me to see it, was
small and delicately formed; the nose--perfectly shaped on the straight
Grecian model--was perhaps a little too thin, judged by comparison with
the full cheeks and the high massive forehead. Looking at him as a whole
(and speaking of him, of course, from a woman's, not a physiognomist's
point of view), I can only describe him as being an unusually handsome
man. A painter would have reveled in him as a model for St. John. And a
young girl, ignorant of what the Oriental robe hid from view, would have
said to herself, the instant she looked at him, "Here is the hero of my
dreams!"

His blue eyes--large as the eyes of a woman, clear as the eyes of a
child--rested on me the moment I turned toward him, with a strangely
varying play of expression, which at once interested and perplexed me.

Now there was doubt--uneasy, painful doubt--in the look; and now again
it changed brightly to approval, so open and unrestrained that a vain
woman might have fancied she had made a conquest of him at first sight.
Suddenly a new emotion seemed to take possession of him. His eyes sank,
his head drooped; he lifted his hands with a gesture of regret. He
muttered and murmured to himself; pursuing some secret and melancholy
train of thought, which seemed to lead him further and further away
from present objects of interest, and to plunge him deeper and deeper in
troubled recollections of the past. Here and there I caught some of the
words. Little by little I found myself trying to fathom what was darkly
passing in this strange man's mind.

"A far more charming face," I heard him say. "But no--not a more
beautiful figure. What figure was ever more beautiful than hers?
Something--but not all--of her enchanting grace. Where is the
resemblance which has brought her back to me? In the pose of the figure,
perhaps. In the movement of the figure, perhaps. Poor martyred angel!
What a life! And what a death! what a death!"

Was he comparing me with the victim of the poison--with my husband's
first wife? His words seemed to justify the conclusion. If I were right,
the dead woman had evidently been a favorite with him. There was no
misinterpreting the broken tones of his voice when he spoke of her: he
had admired her, living; he mourned her, dead. Sup