something which I wanted you to first
hear from me. She is MARRIED,--and to Mr. Hooker, who is in the same
theatrical company with her. But I want you to think, as I honestly do,
that it is the best for her. She has married in her profession, which is
a great protection and a help to her success, and she has married a man
who can look lightly upon certain qualities in her that others might
not be so lenient to. His worst faults are on the surface, and will wear
away in contact with the world, and he looks up to her as his superior.
I gathered this from her friend, for I did not speak with her myself; I
did not go there to see her. But as I expected to be leaving you soon,
I thought it only right that as I was the humble means of first bringing
her into your life, I should bring you this last news, which I suppose
takes her out of it forever. Only I want you to believe that YOU have
nothing to regret, and that SHE is neither lost nor unhappy."

The expression of suspicious inquiry on her face when he began changed
gradually to perplexity as he continued, and then relaxed into a faint,
peculiar smile. But there was not the slightest trace of that pain,
wounded pride, indignation, or anger, that he had expected to see upon
it.

"That means, I suppose, Mr. Brant, that YOU no longer care for her?"

The smile had passed, yet she spoke now with a half-real, half-affected
archness that was also unlike her.

"It means," said Clarence with a white face, but a steady voice, "that
I care for her now as much as I ever cared for her, no matter to what
folly it once might have led me. But it means, also, that there was no
time when I was not able to tell it to YOU as frankly as I do now"--

"One moment, please," she interrupted, and turned quickly towards
the door. She opened it and looked out. "I thought they were calling
me,--and--I--I--MUST go now, Mr. Brant. And without finishing my
business either, or saying half I had intended to say. But wait"--she
put her hand to her head in a pretty perplexity, "it's a moonlight
night, and I'll propose after dinner a stroll in the gardens, and you
can manage to walk a little with me." She stopped again, returned, said,
"It was very kind of you to think of me at Sacramento," held out her
hand, allowed it to remain for an instant, cool but acquiescent, in his
warmer grasp, and with the same odd youthfulness of movement and gesture
slipped out of the door.

An hour later she was at the hea