lifted him into an ecstasy of joy and excitement, until, on having the
cable company repeat the message, he learned it was a request from Miss
Kirkland to congratulate two mutual friends who had just announced
their engagement, and of whose address she was uncertain. He had hardly
recovered from this disappointment than he was again thrown into a
tumult by the receipt of a mysterious package from the custom-house
containing an intaglio ring. The ring came from Italy, and her ship
had touched at Genoa. The fact that it was addressed in an unknown
handwriting did not disconcert him, for he argued that to make the test
more difficult she might disguise the handwriting. He at once carried
the intaglio to an expert at the Metropolitan Museum, and when he was
told that it represented Cupid feeding a fire upon an altar, he reserved
a stateroom on the first steamer bound for the Mediterranean. But before
his ship sailed, a letter, also from Italy, from his aunt Maria, who was
spending the winter in Rome, informed him that the ring was a Christmas
gift from her. In his rage he unjustly condemned Aunt Maria as a
meddling old busybody, and gave her ring to the cook.

After two months of pilgrimages to places sacred to the memory of Polly
Kirkland, Ainsley found that feeding his love on post-mortems was poor
fare, and, in surrender, determined to evacuate New York. Since her
departure he had received from Miss Kirkland several letters, but they
contained no hint of a change in her affections, and search them as
he might, he could find no cipher or hidden message. They were merely
frank, friendly notes of travel; at first filled with gossip of the
steamer, and later telling of excursions around Cairo. If they held any
touch of feeling they seemed to show that she was sorry for him, and
as she could not regard him in any way more calculated to increase his
discouragement, he, in utter hopelessness, retreated to the solitude
of the farm. In New York he left behind him two trunks filled with such