We talked a little, because we couldn't help it--you may imagine the kind
of talk it was--and parted as coolly as we had met. Now this strange
book comes to me; and I have a strong conviction that she is the writer
of it, for that poem sketches a similar scene--or rather suggests it; and
the tone generally seems the kind of thing she would write--not that she
was a sad woman, either.'

'She seems to be a warm-hearted, impulsive woman, to judge from these
tender verses.'

'People who print very warm words have sometimes very cold manners. I
wonder if it is really her writing, and if she has sent it to me!'

'Would it not be a singular thing for a married woman to do? Though of
course'--(she removed her spectacles as if they hindered her from
thinking, and hid them under the timepiece till she should go on
reading)--'of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and
custom is no argument with them. I am sure I would not have sent it to a
man for the world!'

'I do not see any absolute harm in her sending it. Perhaps she thinks
that, since it is all over, we may as well die friends.'

'If I were her husband I should have doubts about the dying. And "all
over" may not be so plain to other people as it is to you.'

'Perhaps not. And when a man checks all a woman's finer sentiments
towards him by marrying her, it is only natural that it should find a
vent somewhere. However, she probably does not know of my downfall since
father's death. I hardly think she would have cared to do it had she