and golden head bowed on her breast.

How long I stared motionless I do not know. Finally, I was aroused by my
groom taking the Waler's bridle and asking whether I was ill. I tumbled
off my horse and dashed, half fainting, into Peliti's for a glass of
cherry-brandy. There two or three couples were gathered round the
coffee-tables discussing the gossip of the day. Their trivialities were
more comforting to me just then than the consolations of religion could
have been. I plunged into the midst of the conversation at once;
chatted, laughed and jested with a face (when I caught a glimpse of it
in a mirror) as white and drawn as that of a corpse. Three or four men
noticed my condition; and, evidently setting it down to the results of
over many pegs, charitably endeavored to draw me apart from the rest of
the loungers. But I refused to be led away. I wanted the company of my
kind--as a child rushes into the midst of the dinner-party after a
fright in the dark. I must have talked for about ten minutes or so,
though it seemed an eternity to me, when I heard Kitty's dear voice
outside inquiring for me. In another minute she had entered the shop,
prepared to roundly upbraid me for failing so signally in my duties.
Something in my face stopped her.

"Why, Jack," she cried, "what _have_ you been doing? What _has_
happened? Are you ill?" Thus driven into a direct lie, I said that the
sun had been a little too much for me. It was close upon five o'clock of
a cloudy April afternoon, and the sun had been hidden all day. I saw my
mistake as soon as the words were out of my mouth: attempted to recover
it; blundered hopelessly and followed Kitty, in a regal rage, out of
doors, amid the smiles of my acquaintances. I made some excuse (I have
forgotten what) on the score of my feeling faint; and cantered away to
my hotel, leaving Kitty to finish the ride by herself.

In my room I sat down and tried calmly to reason out the matter. Here
was I, Theobald Jack Pansay, a well-educated Bengal Civilian in the year
of grace 1885, presumably sane, certainly healthy, driven in terror from
my sweetheart's side by the apparition of a woman who had been dead and
buried eight months ago. These were facts that I could not blink.
Nothing was further from my thought than any memory of Mrs. Wessington
when Kitty and I left Hamilton's shop. Nothing was more utterly
commonplace than the stretch of wall opposite Peliti's. It was broad
daylight. The road was f