"'When I see her,' he asked, 'am I at liberty to say what I choose?'

"On that I could have said, 'No.' Redmond and I have not seen each
other since the period of my first visit to you. He has been nursing
his wife in the mean time, taking journeys with her, and trying all
sorts of cures; and now he seems tied to his aunt and mother-in-law. He
was merely passing through the city with her, and this morning they
have gone again.--Well," after a pause, "there is no need of words
between us. I have in my possession a part of you. Beautiful women are
like flowers which open their leaves wide enough for their perfume to
attract wandering bees; the perfume is wasted, though the honey may be
hid."

"Alas, what a lesson this man is giving me!" I thought.

"Farewell, then," he said. He bit his lips, and his clenched hands
trembled; but he mastered his emotion. "You must think of me."

"And see you, too," I answered. "Everything comes round again, if we
live long enough. Dramatic unities are never preserved in life; if they
were, how poetical would all these things be! But Time whirls us round,
showing us our many-sided feelings as carelessly as a child rattles the
bits of glass in his kaleidoscope."

"So be it!" he replied. "Adieu!"

That afternoon I staid at home, and put John's room in order, and
cleaned the dust from his Indian idols, and was extremely busy till he
came in. Then I kissed his whiskers, and told him all my sins, and