"And Millie?"

"I didn't want to see Millie."

"And when you did?"

"I came up against her Sunday, coming out of church. 'Where you been?'
she said, and I saw there was a row. _I_ didn't care if there was.
I seemed to forget about her even while she was there a-talking
to me. She was just nothing. I couldn't make out whatever I 'ad seen
in 'er ever, or what there could 'ave been. Sometimes when she
wasn't about, I did get back a little, but never when she was there.
Then it was always the other came up and blotted her out. . . .
Anyow, it didn't break her heart."

"Married?" I asked.

"Married 'er cousin," said Mr. Skelmersdale, and reflected on the
pattern of the tablecloth for a space.

When he spoke again it was clear that his former sweetheart had clean
vanished from his mind, and that the talk had brought back the Fairy
Lady triumphant in his heart. He talked of her--soon he was letting
out the oddest things, queer love secrets it would be treachery to
repeat. I think, indeed, that was the queerest thing in the whole
affair, to hear that neat little grocer man after his story was done,
with a glass of whisky beside him and a cigar between his fingers,
witnessing, with sorrow still, though now, indeed, with a time-blunted
anguish, of the inappeasable hunger of the heart that presently
came upon him. "I couldn't eat," he said, "I couldn't sleep. I made