ay say the same of his hair. I saw it
completely. For a minute or two he removed his hat--his head was
fevered, I think--and he let the sea breeze blow over it. The pure light
brown of his hair was just warmed by a lovely reddish tinge. His beard
was of the same color; short and curling, like the beards of the Roman
heroes one sees in pictures. I shall never see him again--and it is
best for me that I shall not. What can I hope from a man who never once
noticed me? But I _should_ like to hear that he had recovered his health
and his tranquillity, and that his life was a happy one. It has been
a comfort to me, Adelaide, to open my heart to you. I am getting bold
enough to confess everything. Would you laugh at me, I wonder, if I--?"

She stopped. Her pale complexion softly glowed into color; her grand
dark eyes brightened--she looked her loveliest at that moment.

"I am far more inclined, Stella, to cry over you than to laugh at you,"
said Lady Loring. "There is something, to my mind, very sad about this
adventure of yours. I wish I could find out who the man is. Even the
best description of a person falls so short of the reality!"

"I thought of showing you something," Stella continued, "which
might help you to see him as I saw him. It's only making one more
acknowledgment of my own folly."

"You don't mean a portrait of him!" Lady Loring exclaimed.

"The best that I could do from recollection," Stella answered sadly.

"Bring it here directly!"

Stella left the room and returned with a little drawing in pencil. The
instant Lady Loring looked at it, she recognized Romayne and started
excitedly to her feet.

"You know him!" cried Stella.

Lady Loring had placed herself in an awkward position. Her husband had
described to her his interview with Major Hynd, and had mentioned his
project for bringing Romayne and Stella together, after first exacting
a promise of the strictest secrecy from his wife. She felt herself
bound--doubly bound, after what she had now discovered--to respect the
confidence placed in her; and this at the time when she had betrayed
herself to Stella! With a woman's feline fineness of perception, in all
cases of subterfuge and concealment, she picked a part of the truth out
of the whole, and answered harmlessly without a moment's hesitation.

"I have certainly seen him," she said--"probably at some party. But I
see so many people, and I go to so many places, that I must ask for time
to consult