RED FLAME

"James, is it true—what she just told me?" Her voice was full of anxiety and horror, but in some curious way she still managed to be the self-possessed Aunt Selina of old. Even in that moment James found time to admire her.

"Yes, Aunt Selina, I'm afraid it's true."

"Is there no hope, no chance—"

"None, that I can see."

"Then ... oh!" She gave way at that, seeming to crumple where she stood. James helped her to a sofa and silently went into the dining room and mixed some whisky and water. Aunt Selina stared when he offered it to her, and then took it without a word. How like Aunt Selina again! A fool would have raised objections. James almost smiled.

"How do you happen to be here, Aunt Selina?" he asked after a few moments, less in the desire of knowing than in the hope of diverting her. "You didn't come from Bar Harbor to-day?"

"From Boston."

"Boston?"

"I took the boat to Boston last night. I learned of the accident there. I supposed she was safe—the papers said nothing."

"Yes, I know. But—but how did you happen to leave Bar Harbor at all?"

"I was going to meet her here."

"Her?"

"Beatrice."

"I don't understand."

"No, and oh, my poor boy, I've got to make you!" She said this quietly, almost prayerfully, with the air of a person laboring under a weighty mission. James had no reply to offer and walked off feeling curiously uncomfortable. There was a long silence.

"Come over here and sit down, James; I want to talk to you," said Aunt Selina at last. She spoke in her natural tone of voice; there was no more of the priestess about her. There was that about her, however, that made him obey.

"James, I've got to tell you a few things about Beatrice. Some things I don't believe you know. Do you mind?"

"No," said James slowly, "I don't know that I do."

"Well, in the first place, I suppose you thought she was in love with that Englishman?"

James nodded.

"Well, she wasn't—not one particle. Whatever else may or may not be true, that is. She despised him."

James froze, paused as though deciding whether or not to discuss the matter and then said gently: "I have my own ideas about that, Aunt Selina."

She nodded briefly, almost briskly. It was the most effective reply she could have made. The more businesslike the words the greater the impression on James, always, in any matter. Aunt Selina understood perfectly. She let her effect sink in and waited calmly for him to demand proof. This he did at last, going to the very heart of the subject.

"Then perhaps, Aunt Selina, you can account for certain things...."

"No, I shall only tell you what I know. You must do your own accounting." She paused a moment and then went on: "You've heard nothing since you left Bar Harbor, I suppose?"

"Nothing."

"Beatrice was quite ill for a time after you left. For days she lay in bed unable to move, but there seemed to be nothing specific the matter with her. We called in the doctor and he said the same old thing—rest and fresh air. He knew considerably less what was the matter with her than any one else in the house, which is saying a good deal.

"Lord Clairloch left the day after you did. Beatrice saw him once, that evening, and sent him away. The next day he went, saying vaguely that he had to go back to New York.

"James, of course I knew. I couldn't live in the house with the two people I cared most for in the world and not see things, not feel things. The only wonder is that nobody else guessed. It seemed incredible to me, who was so keenly alive to the whole business. Time and time again when Cecilia opened her mouth to speak to me I thought she was going to talk about that, and then she would speak about some unimportant subject, and I blessed her for her denseness. And how I thanked Heaven that that sharp-nosed little minx Ruth wasn't there! She'd have smelt the whole thing out in no time.

"Gradually Beatrice mended. Her color came back and she seemed stronger. At last one evening—only Tuesday it was; think of it!—she came down to dinner with a peculiar sort of glitter in her eyes. She told us that she felt able to travel and was going to New York the next day. She had engaged her accommodations and everything. Of course I knew what that meant....

"Knowledge can be a terrible thing, James. For days it had preyed on me, and now when the moment for action came I was almost too weak to respond. Oh, how I was tempted to sit back and say nothing and let things take their course!... But I simply couldn't fall back in the end, I simply couldn't. After bedtime that evening I went to the door of her room and knocked.

"I found her in the midst of packing. I told her I had something to say to her and would wait till she was ready. She said she was listening.

"'Beatrice,' said I, 'I've always tried to mind my own business above all things, but I'm going to break my rule now. I'm fond of you, Beatrice; if I offend you remember that. I simply can't watch you throw your life away without raising a finger to stop you.'

"She didn't flare up, she didn't even ask me how I knew; she only gave a sort of groan and said: 'Oh, but Aunt Selina, I haven't any life to throw away! It's all been burned and frozen out of me; there's nothing left but a shell, and that won't last long! Can't you let me pass the little that remains in peace? That's all I ask for—I gave up happiness long ago. It won't last long! It can hurt no one!'

"'You have an immortal soul,' said I; 'you can hurt that.'

"She sat looking at the floor for a while and then said imploringly: 'Don't ask me to go back to James, Aunt Selina, for that's the one thing I can't do.' 'I shan't ask you to do anything,' I told her, but I knew perfectly well that I was prepared to go down on my knees before her, when the time came....

"But it hadn't come yet—there was a great deal to be done first. What I did was to tell her something about my own life, in the hope that it might throw a new light on her situation. I told her things that I've never told to a human being and never expected to tell another....

"James, I think I ought to tell you the whole thing, as I told it to her. It may help you to understand ... certain things you must understand. Do you mind?"

She paused, less for the purpose of obtaining his consent than in order to gain a perfect control over her voice and manner. Taking James' silence as acquiescence she folded her hands in her lap and went on in a low quiet voice:

"I haven't had much of a life, according to most ways of thinking. All I ever knew of life, as I suppose you know it, was concentrated into a few months. Not that I didn't have a good time during my girlhood and youth. My mother died when I was a baby, but my stepmother took as good care of me as if I had been her own child, and I loved her almost like my own mother. I've often thought, though, that if my mother had lived things might have turned out differently. Stepmothers are never quite the same thing.

"Well, I grew up and flew about with the college boys in the usual way. I never cared a rap for any of them, beyond the bedtime raptures that girls go through. I was able to manage them all pretty easily; I see now that I was too attractive to them. I had a great deal of what in those days was referred to as 'animation,' which is another way of saying that I was an active, strong-willed, selfish little savage. I was willing to play with the college men, but I always said that when I fell in love it would be with a real man. I laughed when I said it, but I meant it.

"Presently there came a change. Father died, and when I came out of mourning the college men I knew best had graduated and the others seemed too young and silly for me even to play with. It was at about this time, when I was adjusting myself to new conditions and casting about for something to occupy my mind that I came to know Milton Leffert."

James stirred slightly. Aunt Selina smiled.

"Yes, you've heard of him, of course. It gives one a curious feeling, doesn't it, to learn that dead people, or people who are as good as dead, have had their lives? I know, I know ... I think you'd have liked Milton Leffert. He was very quiet and not at all striking in appearance, but he was strong and there was no nonsense about him. He was more than ten years older than I. I had known him only slightly before that time. Then after Father's death he began coming to see me a good deal and we fell into the habit of walking and driving together. I always liked him. I loved talking with him; he was the first man I ever talked much with on serious subjects. He stimulated me, and I enjoyed being with him. Only, it never occurred to me that he could be the Real Man.

"You've often heard of women refusing men because of their poverty. Well, the chief thing that prejudiced me against Milton Leffert was his wealth. He happened to possess a large fortune made and left to him by his father, and he didn't do much except take care of it, together with that of his sister Jane. He was president of the one concern his father had not sold out before he died, but that was the sort of thing that ran itself; he didn't spend an hour a day at it. That wasn't much of a career, according to the way I thought at that time, and when he first began asking me to marry him I laughed outright.

"'You can't know me very well, Milton,' I said, 'if you suppose I could be content with a ready-made man. I like you very much, but you're not the husband for me.'

"'What do you mean by a ready-made man?' he asked, looking at me out of his quiet gray eyes.

"'I should say it was sufficiently obvious,' I said. 'There's nothing the matter with you, and I hate to hurt you, but—well, you're not dynamic.'

"I stopped to see how he would take that. He was silent for a while, then at last he said: 'I don't think that's a very good reason for refusing a man.'

"I laughed; the grave way he said it was so characteristic of him. 'Oh, Milton,' I said, 'I really think that's the only reason in the world to make me refuse a man. I don't much believe I shall ever marry, but if I do it will be to a man that I can help win his fight in the world; somebody with whom I can march side by side through life, whom I alone can help and encourage and inspire! He's got to be the kind that will start at the bottom and work his way up to the top, and who couldn't do it without me! That's not you, Milton. You have no fight to make—your father made it for you. You start in at the top, the wrong end. Of course there are still higher summits you could aim for, but you never will, Milton. You're not that kind; you'll hold on to what you have, and no more. I'm not blaming you; you were made that way. And there must be a great many people like you in the world. And I like you none the less. Only I can't marry you.'

"'But I don't see what difference all this would make,' he said, 'if you only loved me.'

"'My dear man,' said I, 'don't you see that it's only that sort of a man who could make me love him? If you had it in you, I suppose I should love you. You don't suppose I could love you without that, do you? I'm afraid you don't understand me very well, Milton!'

"'I'm learning all the time,' he answered, and that was the nearest thing to a witty or humorous remark that I ever heard him make.

"'Then again,' I went on, 'our ages are too far apart. Even if you were the sort I mean, we shouldn't be starting even. The fight would be half won when I came in, and that would never do. I shouldn't feel as if I were part of your life. A marriage like that wouldn't be a marriage, it would be a sweet little middle-aged idyll!'

"He flushed at that. 'A man can't change his age, Selina; you have no right to taunt me with that.'

"'I didn't mean to taunt you—I only wanted to explain,' said I. 'And the last thing in the world I want to do is to hurt you.'

"'But that's the only thing a man can't change,' he went on after a moment, paying no attention to my apology. After another pause he added: 'I shan't give you up, mind,' and when we talked again it was of other things.

"I went on seeing him as before, though not quite so often. Then presently I went away on some long visits and did not see him for several months. When I came back I noticed that his manner was more animated than before, and that somehow he looked younger. I remember being quite pleased.—He was thirty-four at the time, and I not quite twenty-three.

"It was perfectly evident, even to me, that he was working to win me. I saw it, but I did not pay any attention to it; when I thought about it at all it was with a sort of amusement. One day he came to me apparently very much pleased about something.

"'Congratulate me, Selina,' he said; 'I've just got my appointment.'

"'Appointment?' said I. I truthfully had no idea what he was talking about.

"'Yes,' he went on, 'I begin work on the board next week.'

"'What board?'

"'Why, the tax board—the city tax board. Surely you knew?'

"Then I laughed—I remember it so distinctly. 'Good gracious, Milton,' I said, 'I thought it must be the Cabinet of the United States, at the very least!' Then I saw his face, and knew that I had hurt him.

"'It's splendid, of course,' I added. 'I do congratulate you, indeed, most heartily. Only—only Milton, you were so serious!'

"I laughed again. He stared at me and after a moment laughed himself, a little. I suppose that laugh was the greatest effort he had made yet. I know I liked him better at that moment than ever before. If he had let it go at that who knows what might have happened?

"But he changed again after a few seconds; he scowled and became more serious than ever. 'No!' he said angrily, 'why should I laugh with you over the most serious thing in my life? Why should you want to make me? First you blame me for not making anything of myself, and now, when I am trying my best to do it, you laugh at me for being serious! Of course I'm serious about my work—I shan't pretend to be anything else.'

"Of course that was all wrong, too. Every one admires a man who can laugh a little about his work. But I felt a sort of hopelessness in trying to explain it to him; I was afraid he would never really understand. So instead I drew him out on the new work he had taken up and tried to make him talk about the plans he had in mind, of which the tax board was only the first step. He seemed rather shy about talking of the future.

"'It's a case for actions, not words,' he said. 'I don't want to give you the impression that I'm only a talker. You'll see, in time, what you've made of me,' and he smiled at me in a way that rather went to my heart.

"'Milton,' I said, 'I'm more than glad if I can be of help to you, in any way, but I should be deceiving you if I let you think there's any hope—any more hope, even, than there was.'

"But that was the kind of talk he understood best. 'Selina,' he said, 'don't you bother about caring for me. The time hasn't come for that yet. I'm not even ready for it myself—there's a lot to be done first. The time will come, at last; I'm sure of it. A woman can't have such a power over a man as you have over me without coming to have some feeling for him in the end, if it's only pride in her own handiwork. But even if it never should come, do you think I could regret what I've done, what I'm going to do? You've made a man of me, Selina. That stands, no matter what happens!'

"Of course that sort of thing can't help but make an impression on a woman, and it had its effect on me. It made me a little nervous; it was like raising a Frankenstein. I began to wonder if I should come to be swallowed up in this new life I had unwillingly created. Once or twice I caught myself wondering how it would feel to be the wife of Milton Leffert....

"But about that time my stepmother began talking to me about it and trying to persuade me to marry him, and that had the effect of making me like the thought less. Somehow she made it seem almost like a duty, and if there was one thing I couldn't abide it was the idea of marrying from a sense of duty. Then other things came into my life and for a time I ceased to think of him almost entirely.

"We went abroad for several months, my stepmother and the two boys and I. Hilary had been seriously ill, and we thought the change would do him good. And as he had a good deal of study to make up—he was fourteen at the time—my stepmother engaged a young man to go with us and tutor him and be a companion to the boys generally.

"You might almost guess the rest. I saw my stepmother wince when he met us at the steamer—we had engaged him by letter and had no idea what he looked like. I suppose it had never occurred to her before that there might be danger in placing me in daily companionship with a man of about my own age. It certainly occurred to her then.

"James, I know I can't make it sound plausible to you, but even now I don't wonder I fell in love with him. I don't suppose a more attractive man was ever born. He was thin and brown and had a pure aquiline profile—but it's no use describing him. Think of the most attractive person you ever knew and make him ten times more so and perhaps you'll get some idea.

"He was quite poor—that also took my fancy. He was trying to earn money enough to put himself through law school. Those who knew him said he was a brilliant student and that a great career lay before him, and I believed it. He certainly was as bright and keen as they make 'em, and very witty and amusing. Occasionally Harry reminds me of him, and that makes me worry about Harry.... Of course I was tremendously taken with his mental qualities, and I had all sorts of romantic notions about helping him to make a great place for himself in the world, and all the rest of it. But as a matter of fact what drew me to him chiefly was simple animal attraction. It wasn't wrong and it wasn't unnatural, but—well, it was unfortunate.

"Even my stepmother felt it. I don't know how long it was before she knew what was going on, but she never made any effort to stop it. Like a sensible woman she kept her mouth shut and determined to let things take their course. But she never talked to me any more about Milton Leffert, and as a matter of fact I know she would have been perfectly willing that I should marry Adrian. Yes, that was his first name. I shan't tell you his last, because he's still alive.

"I remember telling myself when I first saw him that such an absurdly handsome person could not have much to him, but he appeared better and better as time went on. He was thoughtful and tactful and knew how to efface himself. He was splendid with the boys; Hilary in particular took a tremendous fancy to him and would do anything he said. He was the greatest influence in Hilary's life up to that time, and I really think the best. He was an extraordinary person. By the end of the first month I suspected he was the Real Man. By the end of the second I was convinced of it, and by the end of the third I would willingly have placed my head under his foot any time he gave the word. By the end of the sixth month I wouldn't have touched him with my foot—I'm sure of it. But there never was any sixth month.

"In the month of June we were on the Lake of Como. There happened to be a full moon. Como in the moonlight is not the safest place in the world for young people, under any circumstances. In our case it was sure to lead to something.

"We had strolled up to a terrace high above the lake and stood for a long time leaning over the balustrade drinking in the beauty of the scene. For a long time we said nothing, and apparently the same thought struck us both—that it was all too beautiful to be true. At any rate after a time Adrian sighed and said: 'Oh, this damnable moonlight!'

"'Why?'I asked.

"'Because it makes everything seem so unreal—the lake, the mountains, the nightingales, everything. It's like a poem by Lamartine. But I don't mind that—I like Lamartine. The trouble is it makes you seem unreal too. Oh, I know that you're where you are and are flesh and blood and that if I pinched you you'd probably scream and all that—'

"'No, I shouldn't,' said I. 'I wouldn't be real if I did.'

"He sighed. 'That shows it,' he said; 'that proves exactly what I say. You're not really living this; your soul isn't really here. I'm not really in your life. I'm just a pretty little episode, a stage property, a part of the lake and the moonlight, a part of every summer vacation!'

"'If you're not really in my life,' said I, 'doesn't it occur to you that it's because of your unreality, not mine?'

"'You admit that I'm not real to you, then?'

"'No,' said I, 'but it would be your own fault if you weren't.'

"'What about that man in New Haven, is he real?' he asked suddenly. I only flushed, and he went on: 'That's it—he's the real man in your life. You're willing to play about with me in the summertime, but when the winter comes you'll go straight back and marry him. I'm all right for the moonlight, but you want him in the cold gray light of the dawn! He's the Old and New Testaments to you, and I'm only—a poem by Lamartine! And with me—oh, Lord!' He buried his face in his hands.

"I don't know whether it was pure accident or whether he somehow guessed part of the truth. At any rate it roused me. I was very sure that what he said was not true, or at least I was very anxious that it should not be true, which often comes to the same thing. I argued with him for some time, and when words failed there were other things. But he did not seem entirely convinced.

"After a while, as we sat there, Hilary appeared with a telegram that had just arrived for me. I saw that it was a cable message and thought it was probably from Milton Leffert, as he had said that he might possibly come abroad on business during the summer and would look me up if he did. And somehow the thought of Milton Leffert at that moment filled me with the most intense disgust....

"'Now,' I said when Hilary had gone, 'I'm tired of arguing; here may be a chance to prove myself by actions. Open this telegram, and tell me if it's from Milton Leffert!'

"He looked at me in a dazed sort of way. 'Open it!' I repeated, stamping my foot. I was drunk with love and moonlight and I imagine I must have acted like a fury. I know I felt like one.

"He opened the telegram and read it, gravely and silently.

"'Is it or is it not from Milton Leffert?'

"'Yes. He—'

"'That's all I want to know—don't say another word! Do you hear? Never tell me another word about that telegram as long as you live! And now destroy it—here—before my eyes! I'm going to put Milton Leffert out of my life forever, here and now! Go on, destroy it!'

"Adrian hesitated. He seemed almost frightened. 'But—' he began.

"'Adrian!' I turned toward him with the moonlight beating full down on me. I was not so bad-looking in those days; I daresay I was not bad-looking at all as I stood there in the moonlight. At least I know that woman never used her beauty more consciously than I did in that moment.

"'Adrian, look at me! Do you love me?'

"He allowed that he did.

"'Then do what I say. Destroy that telegram and never mention it or that man's name to me again!'

"A change came over him. He hesitated no longer; he became forceful and determined.

"'Very well,' he cried, 'if you're not mine now you will be! Here's good-by to Milton Leffert!'

"He took some matches from his pocket and lit the end of the paper. When it was burning brightly he dropped it over the edge of the terrace and it floated out into the space beneath. We stood together and watched it as it fell, burning red in the moonlight....

"Then for some weeks we were happy. Adrian seemed particularly so; he had had his gloomy moods before that but now they passed away entirely. And if there was a cloud of suspicion that I had done wrong in my own mind I was so happy in seeing Adrian's joy that I paid no attention to it.

"Only one thing struck me as odd; he would not let me tell my stepmother. He gave a number of reasons for it; it would make his position with us uncomfortable; he could not be a tutor and a lover at the same time; he was writing to his relatives and wanted to wait till they knew; we must wait till we were absolutely sure of ourselves, and so forth. One of these reasons might have convinced me, but his giving so many of them made me suspect, even as I obeyed him, that none of them was the real one. I wondered what it could be. I found out, soon enough.

"We left Italy and worked slowly northward. Several weeks after the scene on the terrace we reached Paris. There we met a number of our American friends, some of whom had just arrived from home. One day my stepmother and I were sitting talking with one of these—Elizabeth Haldane it was—and in the course of the conversation she happened to say: 'Very sad, isn't it, about poor Milton Leffert?'

"'What is sad?' asked my stepmother.

"'Why, haven't you heard?' said Elizabeth. 'He died a short time before we left. Brain fever or something of the sort—from overwork, they said. He was planning to run for the State Legislature this fall.' I saw her glancing round; she couldn't keep her eyes off me. But I sat still as a stone....

"As soon as I could I took Adrian off alone.

"'Adrian,' I said, 'the time has come when you've got to tell me what was in that telegram.'

"'Never,' said he, smiling. 'I promised, you know,'

"'I release you from your promise.'

"'Even so, I can't tell you.'

"'Adrian,' said I, looking him full in the face, 'Milton Leffert is dead.'

"'I'm sorry to hear it,' said he.

"I blazed up at that. 'Stop lying to me,' I cried, 'and tell me what was in that telegram!'

"He confessed at last that it was from Jane Leffert saying that her brother was dangerously ill and asking me to come to him if possible or at least send some message. I knew well enough what it must have been, but I wanted to wring it from his lips....

"'Well, have you nothing to say to me?' he asked.

"I didn't answer for some time—I couldn't. To tell the truth I hadn't been thinking of him. At last I turned on him. 'You contemptible creature,' I managed to say.

"'Why?' he whined. 'You've no right to call me names. You made me do it. If you're sorry now it's your own fault.'

"'I was to blame,' I answered. 'Heaven forbid that I should try to excuse my own fault. But do you think that lets you out? Suppose the positions had been reversed; suppose you had been ill and Milton with me. Do you imagine he would have let me remain in ignorance while you lay dying and in need of me, no matter what I told him to do or not to do? Are you so weak and mean that you can't conceive of any one being strong and good?'

"'It was because I loved you so much that I did it,' he said.

"'Oh, Adrian,' I told him, 'if you really loved me, why did you let me do a thing you knew I'd live to regret? If you really loved me, what had you to fear but that?'

"'You might have saved his life,' he answered.

"Oh, James, the anguish of hearing those words from his lips! The man I did not love telling me I might have saved the life of the man I did! For now that it was too late I knew well enough who it was that I loved. In one flash I saw the two men as they were, one strong, quiet, unselfish, the other selfish, cowardly, mean-spirited. Now I saw why he had not wanted me to tell my stepmother of our engagement. He wanted to cover up his own part in the affair in case anything unpleasant happened when I heard of Milton's death.

"I told my stepmother everything as soon as I could and she behaved splendidly. She sent Adrian away and I never saw him again. And as I announced my intention of going home on the next steamer she decided it was best to give up the rest of her trip and take the boys along back with me. So we all went, that same week.

"People wondered, when we arrived so long ahead of time, and came pretty near to guessing the whole truth. But I didn't care. The one thing I wanted in the world was to see Milton's sister, his one surviving relative.

"'Jane Leffert,' I wrote her, 'if you can bear to look on the woman who killed your brother, let her come and tell you she's sorry.' She was a good woman and understood. The next day I went to her house. She took me upstairs and showed me his room, the bed where he had died. I never said a word all the time. Then, as she was really a very remarkable woman, she handed me an old brooch of her mother's containing a miniature of him painted when he was four years old, and told me it was mine to keep. Then for the first time I broke down and cried....

"If it hadn't been for Jane Leffert I think I should have gone mad. She never tried to hide the truth from me. She admitted, when I asked her, that Milton had, to all intents and purposes, worked himself to death for me, and that the doctor had said the one hope for him lay in his seeing me or hearing I was coming to him. But never a word of blame or reproach did she give me, never a hint of a feeling of it. She knew how easy it is to make mistakes in life, she knew how hard it is to atone for them. She it was who gave me the blessed thought that it was worth while to go on living as part of my atonement, and that if I put into my life the things I had learned from him I might even, to a certain extent, make Milton live on in me.

"So instead of taking poison or becoming a Carmelite nun I went on living at home as before, stimulated and inspired by that idea. It was hard at first, but somehow the harder things were the greater the satisfaction I took in life. By the time I had lightened the remaining years of my stepmother's life and nursed Jane Leffert through her last illness I became content with my lot and, in a way, happy. I never asked for happiness nor wanted it again on earth, but it came, at last. There is something purifying about loving a dead person very much. The chief danger is in its making one morbid, but as I was always a thoroughly practical person with a strong natural taste for life it did me nothing but good. But I don't prescribe it for any one who can get anything better....

"One thing in particular helped me to keep my mind on earth and remind me of the far-reaching effects of wrong-doing. I have said that Hilary, your father, was extremely fond of Adrian. Well, somehow he got the idea into his head that I had thrown him over because of his poverty, and he never forgave me for it. Till his dying day he believed that I really loved Adrian most but was afraid to marry him. Over and over again I told him the truth, taking a sort of fierce pleasure in being able to tell any one that I had never loved any one but Milton Leffert.

"'Then why did you let Adrian make love to you?' Hilary would answer, 'and why did you make him burn that telegram? I know, I heard you as I walked down the path.' Nothing I could say ever made him understand. And the hardest part of it was that I couldn't exactly blame him for not being convinced.

"Taking him at that impressionable time of life the thing had a tremendous effect on him. The idea grew into him that no human feeling could stand the test of hard facts; that that was the way love worked out in real life. From that time on his mind steadily developed and his soul steadily dwindled. He became practical, brilliant, worldly wise, heartless. We grew gradually more and more estranged; you seldom heard him mention my name, I suppose? That's why you never heard before what I've been telling you, or at least the whole truth of it.... And so, as he consciously modeled certain of his mannerisms after those of Adrian he unconsciously grew more and more like him in character; and I had the satisfaction of watching the change and realizing that it was due, in part at least, to me. And the thought of how I unwillingly hurt him has made me all the more anxious to make reparation by being of service to his two boys. Perhaps you can imagine some of the things I've feared for them...."