come before, slowly shaping itself out of the obscurity as the vision of
a fair young girl seated in one of the empty chairs before him. Always
the same pretty, childlike face, fraught with a half-frightened,
half-wondering trouble; always the same slender, graceful figure,
but always glimmering in diamonds and satin, or spiritual in lace and
pearls, against his own rude and sordid surroundings; always silent with
parted lips, until the night wind smote some chord of recollection,
and then mingled a remembered voice with his own. For at those times
he seemed to speak also, albeit with closed lips, and an utterance
inaudible to all but her.

"Well?" he said sadly.

"Well?" the voice repeated, like a gentle echo blending with his own.

"You know it all now," he went on. "You know that it has come at
last,--all that I had worked for, prayed for; all that would have made
us happy here; all that would have saved you to me has come at last, and
all too late!"

"Too late!" echoed the voice with his.

"You remember," he went on, "the last day we were together. You remember
your friends and family would have you give me up--a penniless man. You
remember when they reproached you with my poverty, and told you that it
was only your wealth that I was seeking, that I then determined to
go away and never to return to claim you until that reproach could be
removed. You remember, dearest, how you clung to me and bade me stay
with you, even fly with you, but not to leave you alone with them. You
wore the same dress that day, darling; your eyes had the same wondering