Ina reflected a moment, and then told her tale. Dealing now with longer
sentences, she betrayed her foreign half.

"Being alone so long," said she, "has made me reflect more than in all my
life before, and I now understand many things that, at the time, I could
not. He to whom I have given my love, and resigned the art in which I was
advancing--with your assistance--is, by nature, impetuous and inconstant.
He was born so, and I the opposite. His love for me was too violent to
last forever in any man, and it soon cooled in him, because he is
inconstant by nature. He was jealous of the public: he must have all my
heart, and all my time, and so he wore his own passion out. Then his
great restlessness, having now no chain, became too strong for our
happiness. He pined for change, as some wanderers pine for a fixed home.
Is it not strange? I, a child of the theater, am at heart domestic. He, a
gentleman and a scholar, born, bred, and fitted to adorn the best
society, is by nature a Bohemian.

"One word: is there another woman?"

"No, not that I know of; Heaven forbid!" said Ina. "But there is
something very dreadful: there is gambling. He has a passion for it, and
I fear I wearied him by my remonstrances. He dragged me about from one
gambling-place to another, and I saw that if I resisted he would go
without me. He lost a fortune while we were together, and I do really
believe he is ruined, poor dear."

Ashmead suppressed all signs of ill-temper, and asked, grimly, "Did he
quarrel with you, then?"

"Oh, no; he never said an unkind word to me; and I was not always so