* * * * *

And now the time has come for me to tell as quickly as I may the story
of my bereavement--a bereavement so immense that no man, living or dead,
can ever have experienced the like; and to explain how it is that I have
not only survived it and kept my wits (which some people seem to doubt),
but am here calmly and cheerfully writing my reminiscences, just as if I
were a famous Academician, actor, novelist, statesman, or general
diner-out--blandly garrulous and well-satisfied with myself and
the world.

During the latter years of our joint existence Mary and I engrossed by
our fascinating journey through the centuries, had seen little or
nothing of each other's outer lives, or rather I had seen nothing of
hers (for she still came back sometimes with me to my jail); I only saw
her as she chose to appear in our dream.

Perhaps at the bottom of this there may have been a feminine dislike on
her part to be seen growing older, for at "Magna sed Apta" we were
always twenty-eight or thereabouts--at our very best. We had truly
discovered the fountain of perennial youth, and had drunk thereof! And
in our dream we always felt even younger than we looked; we had the
buoyancy of children and their freshness.

Often had we talked of death and separation and the mystery beyond, but
only as people do for whom such contingencies are remote; yet in reality
time flew as rapidly for us as for others, although we were less
sensible of its flight.

There came a day when Mary's exuberant vitality, so constantly