it; Jane passed out
of the room.

Slowly and painfully the professor stooped down and gathered up his
wife's letters and his wife's photograph. He sat down in the big plush
chair by the fireside and thought for a long time. He was thinking of
an old quotation from some Sanskrit poem--"Every yesterday a dream of
happiness, every to-morrow a vision of hope--" That was all he could
remember, but his mind said it over and over. Well, his
yesterdays--the yesterdays of long ago--were dreams of happiness--he
had no visions; to-morrow offered him nothing. After a while he took
Mary's picture and looked at it. His dreams slowly settled to
earth--and he began to adjust his perspective. It was a long, long
time since he had even remembered--since the dream had been more than
a vague light shining through the mist. Now he wondered, as he stared
at the pictured eyes, so laughingly helpless, at the chin, so
characterless, at the pretty mouth from which no word worth listening
to had ever proceeded--wondered whether the light was other than a
reflection from Youth's glamour. Then he took up the letters and read
them one by one. He wondered why they seemed so shallow--why he had
never noticed their irresponsible dancing from light to shade, from
light affection to unreasonable and trifling fretfulness. The last
letter he held in his hand for some time after he had read it. It was
written from a summer resort. "You had better not come down," it read,
"you would just spoil the delightful little time I am having with Mr.
Sanders--so stay at home with your books like the dear old bore you
are. Please send me ..." He remembered how it had hurt. He remembered
shortly afterwards how she had been taken ill, and how she had chafed
and feared, and how the dark had taken her while she cried in terror.
He remembered--so much. He wished that he had not tried to remember.

It began to grow dark. The professor lifted the bundle of letters and
the photograph, and placed them in the fire-place as carefully as if
they had been burnt-offerings. Well, they were--to a dead Romance. The
charred paper crumbled where he had laid the letters--a few black
pieces floated drunkenly up the chimney. The fire had gone out long
before. The professor fumbled in his pocket for a match. When he had
found it he struck it on the brick hearth, but his hand trembled so
that it burnt his fingers and he dropped it. He lit another,
carefully, deliberately, and held it to th