denizens of another sphere ought to
do?" Mrs. Howard was constrained to ask.

"No--she is a little angel and always tells me that sins are forgiven."

"Does she come often?"

"Every single evening when I am alone--and--sometimes, she melts into my
arms and stays with me all night. Binko--Ah!--you remember Binko!"--for
Sabine's face had suddenly lit up--and at this passionate joy and
emotion flooded Michael's and they both stopped dead short in their talk
and Sabine took a quick breath that was almost a gasp.

"I remember--nothing," she said very fast, "how should I? The girl whose
ghost you are speaking of ceased to exist five years ago--but
I--recognize the portrait--I knew her in life--and she told me about the
dog--he had fat paws and quantities of wrinkles, I think she said."

"Yes, that is Binko!" and his master beamed rapturously. "He is the most
beautifully ugly bulldog in the world, but the poor old boy is getting
on, he is seven years old now. Would not you like to see him--again--I
mean from what you have heard!"

"I love animals, especially dogs--but tell me, is he not afraid of the
ghost?"

Michael drank some champagne, even under all his unhappiness he was
greatly enjoying himself. "Not at all, he loves her to come as much as I
do. She haunts--both my rooms--and the chapel, too--she wears a white
dress and has some stephanotis in her hair--and I am somehow compelled
to enact a whole scene with her--there before the altar with all the
candles blazing--and it seems as if I put a ring upon her hand--like the
one you are wearing there--she has lovely hands."

The color began to die out of Sabine's cheeks and a strange look grew in
her eyes. The footmen were removing the fish plates, but she was
oblivious of that. Then the tones of Michael's voice changed and grew
deeper.

"Soon all the vision fades into gloom, and the only thing I can see is
that she is tearing my ring off and throwing it away into the darkness."

"And do you try to prevent her from doing this?" Sabine hardly spoke
above a whisper, while she absently refused an entree which was being
handed. To talk of ghosts and such like things had been easy enough, but
she had not bargained for him turning the conversation into one of
serious meaning. She could not, however, prevent herself from continuing
it, she had never been so interested in her life.

"No--I cannot do that--there is an archangel standing between."

At this moment Mrs. How