pon me once, and she smiled again.
Days before we were formally presented, I caught her softened look
turned my way, as we passed each other in hall or corridor. We were
friends, or so it appeared to me, before ever a word passed between us,
and when fortune favoured us and we were duly introduced, our minds met
in a strange sympathy which made this one interview a memorable one
to me. Unhappily, as I then considered it, this was my last day at
the hotel, and our conversation, interrupted frequently by passing
acquaintances, was never resumed. I exchanged a few words with her by
way of good-bye but nothing more. I came to New York, and she remained
in Lenox. A month after and she too came to New York."

"This good-bye--do you remember it? The exact language, I mean?"

"I do; it made a great impression on me. 'I shall hope for our further
acquaintance,' she said. 'We have one very strong interest in common.'
And if ever a human face spoke eloquently, it was hers at that moment.
The interest, as I understood it, was our mutual sympathy for our
toiling, half-starved, down-trodden brothers and sisters in the lower
streets of this city; but the eloquence--that I probably mistook. I
thought it sprang from personal interest, and it gave me courage to
pursue the intention which had taken the place of every other feeling
and ambition by which I had hitherto been moved. Here was a woman in a
thousand; one who could make a man of me indeed. If she could ignore
the social gulf between us, I felt free to take the leap. Cowardice had
never been a fault of mine. But I was no fool even then. I realised that
I must first let her see the manner of man I was and what life meant
to me and must mean to her if the union I contemplated should become an
actual fact. I wrote letters to her, but I did not give her my address
or even request a reply. I was not ready for any word from her. I am not
like other men and I could wait. And I did, for weeks, then I suddenly
appeared at her hotel."

The change of voice--the bitterness which he infused into this final
sentence made every one look up. Hitherto he had spoken calmly, almost
monotonously, as if no present heart-beat responded to this tale of
vanished love; but with the words, "Then I suddenly appeared at her
hotel," he showed himself human again, and betrayed a passion which
though curbed was of the fiery quality, befitting his extraordinary
attributes of mind and person.

"This was when?