RIPLEY, attorney, New York:

“Draft accepted. Begin immediately.

“Ulrich.”

Such was the cable dispatch that Arthur got a fortnight after he had mailed his letter to Counselor Ulrich of Vienna. A fortnight later still, the post brought him an epistle to the same effect. Then ensued four weeks of silence. During these four weeks one question had received a good share of his attention. The substance and the solution of it, may be gathered from the following conversation held between him and Peixada.

Arthur said, “Suppose the residence of your sister-in-law to be discovered: what next? Suppose we find that she is living in Europe: how can we induce her to return hither and render herself liable to the jurisdiction of our courts? Or suppose even that she should turn out to be established here in New York: what’s to prevent her from packing her trunks and taking French leave the day after citations to attend the probate of her husband’s will are served upon her? In other words, how are we to compel her to stand and deliver? Ignorant as we are of the nature and location of her properties, we can’t attach them in the regular way.”

Peixada said, “Hum! That’s so. I hadn’t thought of that. That’s a pretty serious question.”

“At first,” said Arthur, “it struck me as more than serious—as fatal. But there’s a way out of it—the neatest and simplest way you can imagine.”

“Ah,” sighed Peixada, with manifest relief.

“Now see,” continued Arthur. “Mrs. Peixada shot her husband—was indicted—tried—acquitted’—yes?”

“To be sure.”

“But at the same time she also took the life of a man named Edward Bolen, her husband’s coachman—eh?”

“She did—certainly.”

“Was she indicted for his murder as well as for the other?”

“She was indicted, yes, but——”

“But never arraigned for trial. Then the indictment is still in force against her?”

“I suppose it is—unless the statute of limitations——”

“The statute of limitations does not apply after an indictment has once been found.”

“Oh.”

“Well, I was thinking the matter over the other day—confronting that difficulty I have mentioned, and wondering how the mischief it was to be surmounted—when it occurred to me that it might be possible to interest the authorities in our behalf, and so get Mrs. Peixada under lock and key.”

“Splendid!”

“I went over to the district-attorney’s office, and saw Mr. Romer, the senior assistant, who happens to be a good friend of mine, and told him the sum and substance of our case. Then I asked him whether for the sake of justice he wouldn’t lend us the machinery of the law—that is, upon our finding out her whereabouts, cause her extradition and imprisonment under the indictment in re Bolen. I promised that you would assume the entire expense.”

“And he replied?”

“That it was a rather irregular proposition, but that he would think it over and let me know his conclusion.”

“Well, have you heard from him since?”

“Yes—yesterday morning I received a note, asking me to call at his office. When I got there, this is what he said. He said that he had read the indictment, and consulted his chief, Mr. Orson, and pondered the matter pretty thoroughly. Extraordinary as the proceeding would be, he had decided to do as I wished. ’Because,’ he added, ’there’s a mighty strong case against the woman, and I shouldn’t wonder if it would be worth our while to try her. At any rate, if you can set us on her track, we’ll arrest her and take our chances. We’ve made quite a point, you know, of unearthing indictments that our predecessors had pigeonholed; and more than once we’ve secured a conviction. It doesn’t follow that because the jury in the Peixada case stultified themselves, another jury will. So, you go ahead with your inquiries; and when she’s firmly pinned down, we’ll take her in custody. Then, after you’ve recovered your money, we can step in and do our best to send her up to Sing Sing.’—I declare, I was half sorry to have prepared new troubles for the poor creature; but, you see, our interests are now perfectly protected.”

“A brilliant stroke!” cried Peixada. “Then we shall not merely rescue my brother’s property, but, indirectly at least, we shall avenge his death! I am delighted. Now we must redouble our efforts to ferret her out.”

“Precisely. And that brings me to another point. I have had a long letter—sixteen solid pages—from Ulrich, the Austrian lawyer. He has traced her from Vienna to Paris, from Paris to London. He’s in London now, working up his clew. The last news of her dates back to May, 1882. On the 23d of that month she left the hotel she had been stopping at in London, and went—Ulrich is trying to discover where. I think our best course now will be to retain an English solicitor, and let him carry the matter on from the point Ulrich has reached. With your approval, I shall cable Ulrich to put the affair into the hands of Mr. Reginald Graham, a London attorney in whom I have the utmost confidence. What do you think?”

“Oh, you’re right. No doubt about that. Meantime, here.”—Peixada handed his legal adviser a check for one hundred dollars. “This is to keep up your spirits,” he said.

The above conference had taken place on the forenoon of Wednesday, the 25th of June. It was on that afternoon that Arthur started to read “The Snow Image” to Mrs. Lehmyl.

Next day, after an eternity of impatience, he rang her bell.

“Mrs. Lehmyl,” said the servant, “is sick in her room with a headache.”

“What?” cried Arthur, and stood still, gaping for dismay.

“Yes,” repeated Bridget; “sick in her room.”

“Oh, but she will receive me. I call by appointment. Please tell her that I am here.”

“She said that she could receive no one; but if you’ll step into the parlor, I’ll speak to Mrs. Hart.”

Mrs. Hart appeared and corroborated the maid’s statement. A big lump gathered in Arthur’s throat. He had looked forward so eagerly to this moment—had hoped so much from it—and it had been such a long time coming—that now to have it slip away unused, like this—the disappointment was bitter. He felt utterly miserable and dejected. As he dragged himself down the stoop—he had sprung up it, two steps at a stride, a moment since—he noticed a group of urchins, standing on the curbstone and grinning from ear to ear. He fancied that they had guessed his secret, and were laughing at his discomfiture; if he had obeyed his impulse, he would have wrung their necks on the spot. He crossed the street, locked himself in his room, and surrendered unresistingly to the blue devils.

These vivacious sprites played fast and loose with the poor boy’s imagination. They conjured up before him a multitude of unlikely catastrophes. They persuaded him that his case was worse than hopeless. Mrs. Lehmyl cared not a fig for him. Why, forsooth, should she? Probably he had a successful rival. That a woman such as she should love an insignificant young fellow like himself—the bare idea was preposterous. He was to blame for having allowed the flower of hope to take root in his bosom. He laughed bitterly, and wondered how he had contrived to deceive himself even for a moment.

It was trebly absurd that she should love him after so brief and so superficial an acquaintance. Life wasn’t worth living; and, but for his mother and Hetzel, he would put an end to himself forthwith. Yet, the next instant he was recalling the “Yes” that she had spoken yesterday, in response to his “May I call to-morrow?” and the fearless glance with which she had met his eyes. “Ah,” he cries, “it set my blood afire. It dazzled me with visions of impossible joy. I could almost hear her murmur—oh, so softly—’I love you, Arthur!’ You may guess the effect that fancy had upon me.” It is significant that not once did he pity her for her headache. He took for granted that it was merely a subterfuge for refusing’ to receive him. But her motive for refusing to see him— There was the rub! If he could only have divined it—known it to a certainty—then his suspense would have been less of an agony, then his mind could have borrowed some repose, though perhaps the repose of despair.

Well, he got through the night after a fashion. A streak of cold, gray light lay along the eastern horizon, and the river had put off the color of ink for the color of lead, before he fell asleep. His sleep was troubled. A nightmare played frightful antics upon his breast. It was broad day when he awoke. The river sparkled gayly in the sunlight, the sky shimmered with warmth, the sparrows outside quarreled vociferously. A brief glow of cheerfulness was the result. But memory speedily asserted itself. Heartsick and weary he began his toilet. “What had I to look forward to?” he demands. He climbed the staircase, and entered the breakfast room. Hetzel sat near the window, reading a newspaper. Hetzel grunted forth a gruff good-morning, without looking up. I doubt however, whether Arthur knew that Hetzel was there at all. For, as he crossed the threshold, his eye was caught by something white lying upon his plate. He can’t tell why—but he guessed at once that it was a note from Mrs. Lehmyl. His lover’s instinct scented the truth from afar.

He snatched the letter up eagerly. But he delayed about opening it. He scrutinized the direction—written in a frank, firm, woman’s hand. The paper exhaled never so faint a perfume. Still he did not open it. He was afraid. He would wait till his agitation had subsided a little. He could hear his heart going thump, thump, thump, like a hammer against his side. He had difficulty with his breath. Then a dreadful possibility loomed up before him! What—what if it should not be from her after all! This thought endowed him with the courage of desperation. He tore the missive open.

He was standing there, one hand grasping the back of his chair, the other holding the letter to his eyes, when Hetzel, throwing his newspaper aside, got up, turned about the room, then abruptly came to a halt, facing Arthur.

“Mercy upon me, man,” cried Hetzel, “what has happened? Cheeks burning, fingers trembling! No bad news? Speak—quickly.”

But Arthur did not speak.

Hetzel went on: “I’ve noticed lately, there’s been something wrong with you. You’re nervous, restless, out of kilter. Is there a woman in the case? Is your feeling for our neighbor something more than a passing fancy? Are you taking her seriously? Or, are you simply run down-+-in need of rest and change? Why not make a trip up to Oldbridge, and see your mother?”

By the time Hetzel had finished speaking, Arthur had folded his letter and stowed it away in his pocket.

“Eh? What were you saying?” he inquired, with a blank look.

“Oh, I was saying that breakfast is getting cold; coffee spoiling, biscuit drying up—whatever you choose. Letter from home?”

“Home? No; not from home,” said Arthur.

“Well, draw up, anyhow. Is—is—By Jove, what is the matter with you? Where are you now? Why don’t you pay attention when I speak? What has come over you the last week or two? You’re worrying me to death. Out with it! No secrets from the head of the house.”

“I have no secrets,” Arthur answered, meekly; “only—only, if you must know it, I’m—” No doubt he was on the point of making a full confession. He restrained himself, however; added, “There! I won’t talk about it;” applied himself to his knife and fork, and preserved a dismal silence till the end of the meal. He went away as soon as ordinary courtesy would warrant.

No sooner had he closed the door behind him, than his hand made a dive into his pocket, and brought out Mrs. Lehmyl’s letter. He read it through for perhaps the twentieth time. It ran thus:

“46 Beekman Place,

“Thursday evening.

“Dear Mr. Ripley After a sleepless night, my head is aching cruelly. That is why I was unable to receive you. But, since you had told me that you were coming, I feel that I must write this note to explain and to apologize. I should have sent you word not to come, except that until now I have been too ill to use my eyes. The only help for me when I have a headache like this, is solitary confinement in a darkened room. I have braved the gaslight for an instant, to write you this note, and already I am suffering the consequences. But I felt that I really owed you my excuses. You will accept them in a lenient spirit, will you not?

“Sincerely yours,

“Ruth Lehmyl.”

I think Arthur’s first sentiment on reading this communication, had been one of disappointment. It was just such an apology as she might have written to anybody else under similar circumstances. He had nerved himself, he thought, for the worst before breaking the seal—for a decree forbidding him future admittance to her presence, for an announcement of her betrothal to another man—for what not. But a quite colorless, polite, and amiable “I beg your pardon,” he had not contemplated. It produced the effect of a wet blanket. From the high and mighty heroic mood in which he had torn it open, to the unimpassioned sentences in which it was couched, was too rapid a transition, too abrupt a plunge from hot to cold, an anti-climax equally unexpected and depressing.

But after a second perusal—and a second perusal followed immediately upon the first—his pulse quickened. With a lover’s swift faculty for seizing hold of and interpreting trifles light as air, he discerned what he believed to be encouraging tokens. Under what obligation had Mrs. Lehmyl been to write to him so promptly? At the cost of severe pain, she had hastened to make her excuses for a thing that there was not really the least hurry about. If she were quite indifferent to him, would she not have deferred writing until her headache had passed off? To be sure, it was just such a note as she might have written to Brown, Jones, or Robinson; but would she have “braved the gaslight” and “suffered the consequences” for Brown, Jones, or Robinson? Obviously, she had felt a strong desire to set herself right with him; the recognition of which fact afforded Arthur no end of pleasure.

By the time he had committed Mrs. Lehmyl’s note to memory, he was in a fair way to recover his wonted buoyancy of spirits.

Of course he rang her door-bell in the afternoon.

“How is Mrs. Lehmyl to-day?” he inquired of the maid. “I hope her headache is better.”

“Oh, she’s all well again to-day—just the same as ever,” was the reply.

An idea occurred to him. He had intended merely to inform himself concerning her health, leave the bunch of flowers he held in his right hand, and go his way. But if she was up and about, why not ask to see her?

“Is—is she in?” he questioned.

“Oh, yes; she’s in.”

“Will you please give her my card, then?”

He walked into the parlor.

The parlor was darkened—blinds closed to exclude the heat—and intensely still. The ticking of the clock on the mantel-piece was the only interruption of the silence, save when at intervals the distant roar of a train on the elevated railway became audible for a moment.

Mrs. Lehmyl entered, and gave him her hand, and looked up smiling at him, all without a word. She wore a white gown, and an amber necklace and bracelet; and my informant says that she had “a halo of sweetness and purity all around her.” For a trice Arthur was tongue-tied.

At length, “I have brought you a few flowers,” he began.

She took the flowers, and buried her nose in them, and thanked their donor, and pinned one of the roses at her breast.

“I hope you are quite well again,” he pursued.

“Oh, yes,” she said, “quite well.”

“It was very thoughtful of you to write me that letter—when you were in such pain.”

“I owed it to you. I had promised to receive you. It would have been unfair, if I had not written.”

“I—I was quite alarmed about you. I was afraid your headache might—” He faltered.

“There was no occasion for alarm. I am used to such headaches. I expect one every now and then.”

“But—do you know?—at first I did not believe in it—not until your letter confirmed what Mrs. Hart and the servant had said.”

“Why?”

“I thought perhaps—perhaps you did not care to see me, and had pleaded a headache for politeness’ sake.”

“You did me an injustice.”—A pause.—“I did care to see you.”

A longer pause. Arthur’s heart was beating madly. Well it might. She had pronounced the last sentence with an emphasis calculated to move a man less deeply in love than he.

“Do you mean what you have just said?” he asked presently. His voice quivered.

“Yes.”

“I suppose you knew—I—I suppose you knew what it was I wanted to say to you—what it was I would have said, if I had been admitted.”

“Yes, I knew,” she answered, in almost a whisper, and bowed her head.

Arthur sprang toward her and grasped her hand. “You knew—then, you know that—that I love you—Ruth!”

She withdrew her hand, but did not raise her head. He waited for a moment, breathless; then, “Ah, speak to me—won’t you speak to me?” he begged, piteously.

She raised her head now, and gazed into his eyes; but her gaze was not one of gladness.

“Yes, alas, alas, I know it,” she said, very slowly.

Arthur started back.

“Alas, alas?” he repeated after her.

“Oh, yes,” she said, in the same slow, grave way; “it is very, very sad.”

“Sad?” His eyes were full of mystification.

“I mean that it is sad that you should care for me. If I had only foreseen it—but I did not. You knew so little of me, how could I foresee? But on Wednesday—the way you looked at me—oh, forgive me. I—I never meant to make you care for me.”

“I do not understand,” said Arthur, shaking his head.

“That is why I wanted to see you. After what passed on Wednesday, I felt that it was best for us both that I should see you and tell you what a mistake you had made. I wanted to tell you that you must try hard to forget about it. It would be useless and cruel for me to pretend not to have understood, when you looked at me so. It was best that we should meet again, and that I should explain it to you.”

“But your explanation puts me in the dark.”

“You would not want to love a woman unless there was hope that some day you might marry her. Would not that be a great unhappiness?”

“It is not a question of want. I should love you under any and all conditions.”

“But you never, never can marry me.”

“I will not believe it until—”

“Wait. Do not say things that you may wish to unsay a moment hence. You never can marry me, for one sufficient reason—because—” She hesitated.

“Because?” There was panic in Arthur’s heart. Was she not a widow, after all?

She drew a deep breath, and bit her lip. Her cheek had been pale. Now a hot blush suffused it. With an air of summoning her utmost strength, she went on, “You never can marry me, because you never would marry me—never, unless I should tell you—something—something about my life—my life in the past—which I can never tell—not even to you.”

“Oh!” cried Arthur, with manifest relief. “Is that all?”

“It is enough—it is final, fatal.”

“Oh, I thought it might be worse.”

There befell a silence. Arthur was mustering his forces, to get them under control.. He dared not speak till he had done this. At last, struggling hard to be calm, he said, “Do you suppose I care any thing about your past life? Do you suppose that my love for you is so mean and so small as that? I know all that it is needful for me to know about your past. I know you, do I not? I know, then, that every act, every thought, every breath of your life, has been as pure and as beautiful as you are yourself. But what I know best, and what it is most essential for me to know, is this, Ruth, that I love you. I love you! I can not see that what you have spoken of is a bar to our marriage.”

“Ah, but I—I would not let you enter blindfold into a union which some time you might repent. Should I be worthy of your love, if I would? But, what is worse, were I—were I to tell you this thing—which I can not tell you—then you—you would not ask me to marry you. Then you would not love me. The truth—the truth which, if I should become your wife, I could never share with you—which would remain forever a secret kept by me from my husband—it is—you would abhor me if you should find it out. If you should find it out after we were married—if somebody should come to you and tell you—oh, you would hate me. It is far more dreadful than you can fancy.”

“No—no; for I will fancy the worst, and still beg of you to become my wife. If I loved you less—if I did not know you so well—the hints you utter might prompt some horrible suspicion in my mind. Will you take it as a proof of my love, that I dare assert positively, confidently, this?—Whatever the past may have been, so far as you were concerned in shaping it, it was good beyond reproach. Whatever your secret may be, it is not a secret that could show you to be one jot or tittle less noble than I know you to be. Whatever the truth you speak of is, it is a truth which, if it were understood in its entirety, would only serve to shed new luster upon the whiteness of your soul. And should I—should I by accident ever find it out—and should its form seem, as you have said, dreadful to me—why, I should say to myself, ’You have not pierced its substance? You do not understand it. However it may appear to you, you know that your wife’s part in it was the part of a good angel from first to last 1’—Now do you think I love you?”

“But if—if you should find out that I had been guilty of sin—do you mean to say that—that you would care for me in spite of that?”

“I mean to say that I love you. I mean to say that no power under heaven can destroy my love of you. I mean to say that no power under heaven can prevent my marrying you, if you love me. I mean to say that my heart and soul—the \ inmost life of me—are already married to you, and that they will remain inseparably bound to you—to you!—until I die. More than this I mean to say. You speak of sin. You sin, forsooth! Well, talk of sin, if you like. Tell me that you have been guilty of—of what you will—of the blackest crimes in the calendar. I will not believe it. I will not believe that you were answerable for it. I will tell you that it was not your fault. I will tell you that if your hand has ever done any human being wrong, it was some other will than your own that compelled it. For this I know—I know it as I know that fire burns, that light illuminates—I know that you, the true, intrinsic you, have always been as sweet and undefiled as—as the breath that escapes now from your lips. There are some things that can not be—that no man could believe, though he beheld them with his open eyes. Can a circle be square? Can black be white? No man, knowing you as I know you, could believe that you in your soul were capable of sin.”

He had spoken with immense fervor, consuming her the while with his eyes, and wrenching the hand he held until it must have ached in every bone. She, again as pale as death, had trembled under his fierce, hot utterance, like a reed in the wind. But now that he had done, she seemed to recover herself. She withdrew her hand from his, and moved her chair away.

“Mr. Ripley,” she began, “you must not speak to me like this. It was not to hear you speak like this that I wished to see you to-day. You make it very hard for me to say what I have to say—what it was hard enough to say, at the best. But I must say it, and you must listen and understand. You have not understood yet. Now, please try to.”

She pressed her hand to her throat, and swallowed convulsively. It was evident that she was nerving herself to the performance of a most painful task. Finally she went on, “I have told you frankly that I understood the other day—understood what you meant when you looked at me that way. After you were gone, I thought it all over—all that I had learned. I thought at first that the only thing for me to do would be never to see you again—to refuse to receive you when you called—to avoid you as much as I possibly could. That, I thought, would be the best thing to do. But then I thought further about it, and then it seemed that that would not be right. To break off in that sudden way with you, and not to explain it, would be wrong and cruel. So I put aside that first thought, and said, ’No, I will not refuse to receive him. I will receive him just as before. Only I will act in such a manner toward him that he will not say any thing about caring for me. I will act so as to prevent him from saying any thing about that. Then we will go on and be friends the same as ever.’ But by and by that did not seem right either. It would be as cruel as the other, because, if you really did care for me, it would be a long suspense, a long agony for you; and perhaps, if nothing were said about it, you might get to caring still more for me, and might allow yourself to cherish false hopes, hopes that could never come true. So I decided that this course was as far from right as the first one. And, besides, I distrusted my own power—my power to keep you from speaking. It would be a long, long battle. I doubted whether I should have the strength to carry it through—always to be on my guard, and prevent you from speaking. ’No,’ I said, ’it is bound to come. Sooner or later, if we go on seeing each other, he will surely speak. Is it not better that I should let him know at once—what waiting will make harder for him to hear and for me to tell him—that I can never become his wife? Then, when he knows that he has made a mistake in caring for me, then he will go away, and think of other things, and see other women, and perhaps, by and by, get over it, and forget about me.’ I knew that if I told you that it was impossible for us to get married, and why it was impossible, I knew that you would give up hoping; and I thought that this course was the best of all. It was very hard. I shrank from the idea of speaking to you as I have done. Your good opinion is very precious to me. It was hard to persuade myself to say things to you that would, perhaps, make you think differently of me. But I felt that it was best. I had no right to procrastinate—to let you go on caring for me, and hoping for what could never be. Then I decided that I would see you and tell you about it right away.”

She paused and breathed deeply; but before Arthur had had time to put in a word, she resumed: “I do not believe that you have meant to make it more difficult for me to-day than it had to be; but it has pained me very much to hear you speak as you have spoken. You have not understood; but now you understand—must understand. I never can be your wife. You must try to get over caring for me. You must go away, now that I have explained, and never come any more.”

She had said all this in a low tone, though each syllable had been fraught with earnestness, and had manifestly cost an effort. Arthur, during the last few sentences, had been pacing up and down the room. Now he came to a standstill before her.

“And do you mean to say,” he demanded, “that that is your last word, your ultimatum? Do you mean to say that you will send me away—banish me from your presence—forbid me the happiness of seeing you and hearing you—all for a mere paltry nothing? If there were a real impediment to our marriage, I should be the first to acknowledge it, to bow before it. But this thing that you have mentioned—this—well, call it a secret, if you will—is this empty memory to rise up as a barrier between your life and mine? Oh, no, no! You have spoken of cruelty—you have wished not to be cruel. And yet this utmost cruelty you seem willing to perpetrate in cold blood. Stop, think, reflect upon what you are doing! Have you not seen how much I love you? how my whole life is in my love of you? Do you not know that what you propose to do—to send me away, all on account of this miserable secret—is to break my life forever? is to put out the light forever from my sky, and turn my world to a waste of dust and ashes? Can you—you who recoil from cruelty—be as wantonly cruel as this? Have I not told you that I care nothing for your secret, that I shall never think of your secret, if you will only speak one word? Oh, it is not possible that you can deliberately break my heart, for a mere dead thing like that! If it were something actual, something substantial, something existing now and here, it would be different. Then I, too, should recognize the size and the weight of it. I should accept the inevitable, and resign myself as best I could. But a bygone, a thing that is past and done with, how can you let that stand between us? I can never resign myself to that. Can’t you imagine the torture of my position? To want a thing with all my soul, to know that there is no earthly reason why I should not have it, and yet to know that I can not have it—why, it is like being defeated by a soap bubble, a vapor. Of what use is all this talk? We are merely confusing each other, merely beating about the bush. I have told you what you did not expect to hear. You thought that I would be swerved from my purpose when you said that you had a secret. You thought I would go away, satisfied that it was best for us not to marry. But, you see, you did yourself an injustice. You did not guess the real depth of the love you had inspired. You see, I love you too much to care about the past. Confess that you did not consider this, when, you made up your mind to send me away. But this talk is of no use. All the talk in the world can not alter the way we stand. Here are the simple facts: I love you. I love you! I ask you to be my wife. I kneel down before you, and take your hand in mine, and beg of you not to spurn my love—not to be guided by a blind, deluded conscience—not to think of the past—but to think only of the present and the future—to think only of how much I love you—of how all the happiness of my life is now at stake, for you to make or to destroy. I ask you to be merciful. I ask you to look into your heart, and let that prompt you how to act. If there is one atom of love for me in it—you—”

He broke off sharply; drew a quick, hard breath. Something—a sudden, furtive gleam far down in her eyes—a swift coming and going of color to and from her cheek—caused his heart to throb with an exultant thrill, that for an instant deprived him of the power of speech. Then, all at once, “Oh, my God! You do love me. You do love me!” he cried. He caught her in his arms, and strained her rapturously to his breast.

For a moment she did not resist. Her face lay for a moment buried upon his shoulder. It was a supreme moment of silence. Then she broke away. There were tears in her eyes. She sobbed out, “It is wrong, all wrong.”

But Arthur knew that he had gained the day. Her first sign of weakness was his assurance of success. Protest now as she might, she could no longer hide her love from him. And if she loved him, what had he to fear? There was much further talk between them. She tried to regain the ground she had lost. Failing in this, she wept, and spoke of the wrong she had done him, and said that she had forfeited her self-respect. But Arthur summoned all his eloquence to induce her to look at the matter through his eyes, and in the end—Somewhat later an eavesdropper outside the parlor door might have caught the following dialogue passing within:

Ruth’s voice: “It is strange, Arthur, but a little while ago it seemed to me that I could never tell that—that thing—I spoke about, to any living soul; yet now—now I feel quite otherwise. I feel as though I could tell it to you. I want to tell it to you. It is only right that I should tell you every thing about my life. It is a long story; shall I begin?”

Arthur’s voice: “No, Ruth. Shall I let the happiness of this hour be marred for you and me, by your thinking and speaking of what would pain you? Besides, I prefer that you should keep this—this thing—this secret—as an evidence of my unwavering confidence in you. Why should we trouble ourselves about the past at all, when the present is at hand, and the future is waiting for us? You and I—we have only just been born. The past is dead. Our life dates from this moment. Oh, it is to the future that we must look!”

“But it seems as though you ought to know—ought to know your wife—ought to know who she is, and what she has done.”

“But I do know her. I do know who she is and what she has done. I know it all by instinct. I want her to have this constant proof of my love—that I can trust her without, learning her secrets.”

“But you will not forget—never forget—that I have offered to tell you, will you? You will remember that I am always willing to tell you—that whenever you wish to know it, you will only have to ask me.”

“Yes, I will remember it; and it will make me happy to remember it. But if you wish to tell me something now that I should like to hear, tell me on what day we shall be married?”

“Oh, it is too soon to fix that—we can wait about fixing that.”

“No, no. It must be fixed before I take leave of you to-day. Every thing must be finally settled. When?”

“Whenever you wish.”

“To-morrow.”

“Of course I did not mean that.”

“As soon, then, as possible.”

“Not sooner than—”

“Not longer at the utmost than a month.”

“A month? It is a very short time, a month.”

“But it is a month too long. Make it a month, or less.”

“Well, a month, then: this day month.”

“This day month—to-day being Friday—falls on Sunday. Say, rather this day four weeks, the 25th of July.”

“How shall I get ready in that interval?”

“How shall I live through that interval?”

“What interval? Talking about music, as usual?” said Mrs. Hart, entering at this moment. “Mr. Ripley, how do you do?”

“I am the happiest man in the world,” he answered.

“I congratulate you. Have you won a case?”

“No; I have won a wife.”

“I congratulate you doubly. Who is the lady?”

“Let me present her to you,” he laughed, taking Ruth by the hand.

Mrs. Hart dropped every thing she held—scissors, spectacles, knitting-bag—struck an astonished attitude, and uttered a sharp cry of surprise. Ruth blushed and smiled. For an instant the two ladies stood off and eyed each other. Then simultaneously they rushed toward each other, and fell into each other’s arms; and then there were tears and kisses and incoherent sounds.

Finally, “I congratulate you trebly,” said Mrs. Hart, turning to Arthur.

For a while every body was very happy and very sentimental.

When, toward midnight, Arthur returned to his own abode, Hetzel asked him where he had spent the evening.

“In heaven,” he replied.

“And with what particular divinity?”

“With Mrs. Lehmyl.”

“So?”

“Yes, sir. And—and what do you suppose? She and I are going to be married.”

“What?” cried Hetzel.

“Yes; we are engaged, betrothed. We are going to be married.”

“Engaged? Betrothed? Married? You? Nonsense!”

“Nothing of the kind. Our wedding day is fixed for the 25th of next month.”

“Oh, come, be rational.”

“I am rational. Why should I jest about it?”

“Have you suddenly fallen heir to a fortune?”

“Of course not; why?”

“Why? Why, what are you going to get married on?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean who’s to foot the bills?”

“I have my income, have I not?”

“Oh, your income. Oh, to be sure. Let’s see—how many thousands did it amount to last year?”

“It amounted to fifteen hundred.”

“Fifteen hundred what?”

“Hundred dollars.”

“Is that all?”

“It is enough.”

“Do you seriously intend to marry on that?”

“Why not?”

“Why, it won’t keep your wife in pocket handkerchiefs, let alone feeding and clothing her.”

“I hadn’t thought about it, but I’m sure we can get along on fifteen hundred—added to what I can earn.”

“What was her opinion?”

“I didn’t mention the subject.”

“You asked her to marry you without exhibiting your bank account. Shame!”

“We love each other.”

“When poverty comes in at the door, what is it love’s habit to do?”

“Such love as ours waxes greater.”

“And—and your mother. What will she say?”

“I’m going to write to her to-night—now.”

“Has your mother much respect for my judgment?”

“You know she has.”

“Well, then, tell her from me that you’ve just done a most sensible thing; that your bride’s an angel, yourself a trump, and each of you to be envied above all man and woman kind.”