hard-hearted and pointed me out to their sons as a terrible warning.
And all the time I was torn with agony."

"You poor boy."

"And one night she came to me in a dream. She did not look as she had
just before she died, but strong and beautiful, with the color in her
face she used to have. She smiled at me and kissed me and rumpled my
hair as she used to do. I knew, then, it was all right. She understood,
and I didn't care whether others did or not. I woke up crying, and
after I had had my grief out I was myself again."

"It was so sweet of her to think to come to you. She must have been
loving you up in heaven and saw you were troubled, and came down just
to comfort you and tell you it was all right," the girl cried with soft
sympathy.

"That's how I understood it. Of course, I was only a boy, but somehow I
knew it was more than a dream. I'm not a spiritualist. I don't believe
such things happen, but I know it happened to me," he finished
illogically, with a smile.

She sighed. "He was always so thoughtful of me, too. I do wish I
had--could have been--more--"

She broke off without finishing, but he understood.

"You must not blame yourself for that. He would be the first to tell
you so. He took you for what you could give him, and these last days
were the best he had known for many years."

"He was so good to me. Oh, you don't know how good."

"It was a great pleasure to him to be good to you, the greatest
pleasure he knew."

She looked up as he spoke, and saw shining deep in his eyes the spirit
that had taught him to read so well the impulse of another lover, and,
seeing it, she dropped her eyes quickly in order not to see what was
there. With him it had been only an instant's uncontrollable surge of
ecstasy. He meant to wait. Every instinct of the decent thing told him
not to take advantage of her weakness, her need of love to rest upon in
her trouble, her transparent care for him and confidence in him so
childlike in its entirety. For convention he did not care a turn of his
hand, but he would do nothing that might shock her self-respect when
she came to think of it later. Sternly he brought himself back to
realities.

"Shall I see Mr. Mott for you and send him here? It would be better
that he should make the arrangements than I."

"If you please. I shall not see you again before I go, then?" Her lips
trembled as she asked the question.

"I shall come down to the hotel again and see you before yo