"There are a thousand things. You didn't answer anybody's letters,
after--after----"

"After Richard died. Oh, I can talk about it, now. It was the best
thing that could happen for him, poor fellow. Life in hiding was
purgatory. No, I couldn't answer letters, though my old friends (you
among them) wanted to be kind. There wasn't anything I could let
anybody do for me. Monny Gilder's different. You'll soon see why."

I smiled indulgently. But, though I was to be introduced to Miss Gilder
for the purpose of being eventually gilded by her, at the instant my
thoughts were for my childhood's sweetheart.

Brigit Burne made a terrible mess of things in marrying, when she was
eighteen or so, Richard O'Brien, in the height of his celebrity as a
socialist leader. People still believed in him then, at the time of his
famous lecturing tour and visit to his birthplace on our green island;
and though he was more than twice her age, the fascination he had for
Biddy surprised few who knew him.

He was eloquent, in a fiery way. He had extraordinary eyes, and it was
his pride to resemble portraits of Lord Byron. After an acquaintance of
a month, Biddy married O'Brien (I had just gone up to Oxford at the
time, or I should have tried not to let it happen), went to America
with him, and voluntarily ceased to exist for her friends.

Poor girl, she must have had an awakening! He had posed as a bachelor;
but after her marriage she found out (and the world with her) that he
was a widower with one child, a little girl he had practically
abandoned. Biddy adopted her, though the mother had been a rather