uestion not to be trifled
with."

My reply seemed to satisfy him.

"Promise me," he resumed, "that you will keep what I tell you a secret
as long as I live. After my death I care little what happens. Let the
story of my strange experience be added to the published experience of
those other men who have seen what I have seen, and who believe what
I believe. The world will not be the worse, and may be the better, for
knowing one day what I am now about to trust to your ear alone."

My brother never again alluded to the narrative which he had confided to
me, until the later time when I was sitting by his deathbed. He asked if
I still remembered the story of Jeromette. "Tell it to others," he said,
"as I have told it to you."

I repeat it after his death--as nearly as I can in his own words.

II.

ON a fine summer evening, many years since, I left my chambers in the
Temple, to meet a fellow-student, who had proposed to me a night's
amusement in the public gardens at Cremorne.

You were then on your way to India; and I had taken my degree at Oxford.
I had sadly disappointed my father by choosing the Law as my profession,
in preference to the Church. At that time, to own the truth, I had no
serious intention of following any special vocation. I simply wanted an
excuse for enjoying the pleasures of a London life. The study of the
Law supplied me with that excuse. And I chose the Law as my profession
accordingly.

On reaching the place at which we had arranged to meet, I found that
my friend had not kept his appointment. After waiting vainly for ten
minutes, my patience gave way and I went into the Gardens by myself.

I took two or three turns round the platform devoted to the dancers
without discovering my fellow-student, and without seeing any other
person with whom I happened to be acquainted at that time.

For some reason which I cannot now remember, I was not in my usual good
spirits that evening. The noisy music jarred on my nerves, the sight of
the gaping crowd round the platform irritated me, the blandishments of
the painted ladies of the profession of pleasure saddened and disgusted
me. I opened my cigar-case, and turned aside into one of the quiet
by-walks of the Gardens.

A man who is habitually careful in choosing his cigar has this advantage
over a man who is habitually careless. He can always count on smoking
the best cigar in his case, down to the last. I was still absorbed in
choosing _my_ cigar, w