'How rude you are, I wasn't sighing a bit, I caught my breath.'

'Oh, I like that,' is the reply.

'I'm sure you can never have,' hesitatingly, 'been in love, have you?'
and she glances up at him. 'I'm so sorry I said that,' she adds,
noticing the pained look that comes into his eyes, and then a silence
ensues.

'Look here, Lippa,' says he at length in rather a lower tone, 'don't you
know, has no one told you that I was married five years ago.'

'Married?' exclaims Miss Seaton in astonishment, 'oh, I'm so sorry I
said that.'

'It does not matter in the least,' he replies, 'but I should think no
one has been more desperately in love than I was once.'

'She, your wife, is dead?' asks Lippa quietly.

'I would to Heaven she were,' is the quick reply. 'No, child, don't
think of me as a lonely widower,' this with a laugh that is hard and
grating, 'I'm worse than that.'

'Poor Paul,' says Lippa gently, while her eyes fill with tears, and she
lays her hand on his unoccupied one, the hard look quits his handsome
face, and he sighs.

'Good little soul,' he says possessing himself of it.