ils
as possible, or none at all. Such things are painful, are they
not--especially where the dead are concerned?"

Morris bowed his head and began: "You know I found her on the ship,
singing as she only could sing, and she was a very strange and beautiful
woman--perhaps beautiful is not the word--"

"It will do," interrupted Mary; "at any rate, you thought her
beautiful."

"Then afterwards we grew intimate, very intimate, without knowing it,
almost--indeed, I am not sure that we should ever have known it had it
not been for the mischief-making of Eliza Layard----"

"May she be rewarded," ejaculated Mary.

"Well, and after she--that is, Eliza Layard--had spoken to my father, he
attacked Mr. Fregelius, his daughter, and myself, and it seems that she
confessed to my father that she was--was----"

"In love with you--not altogether unnatural, perhaps, from my point of
view; though, of course, she oughtn't to have been so."

"Yes, and said that she was going away and--on Christmas Eve we met
there in the Dead Church. Then somehow--for I had no intention of such
a thing--all the truth came out, and I found that I was no longer master
of myself, and--God forgive me! and you, Mary, forgive me, too--that I
loved her also."

"And afterwards?" said Mary, moving her skirts a little.

"And afterwards--oh! it will sound strange to you--we made some kind of
compact for the next world, a sort of spiritual marriage; I can call it
nothing else. Then I shook hands with her and went away, and in a
few hours she was dead--dead. But the compact stands, Mary; yes, that
compact stands for ever."

"A compact of a spiritual marriage in a place where there is no
marriage. Do you mean, Morris, that you wish this strange proceeding to
destroy your physical and earthly engagement to myself?"

"No, no; nor did she wish it; she said so. But you must judge. I feel
that I have done you a dreadful wrong, and I was determined that you
should know the worst."

"That was very good of you," Mary said, reflectively, "for really there
is no reason why you should have told me this peculiar story. Morris,
you have been working pretty hard lately, have you not?"

"Yes," he replied, absently, "I suppose I have."

"Was this young lady what is called a mystic?"

"Perhaps. Danish people often are. At any rate, she saw things more
clearly than most. I mean that the future was nearer to her mind; and in
a sense, the past also."

"Indeed. You must ha