had
forgotten her, and he was unaffectedly delighted to see her again.

That one chance meeting was the first of many. Flowers came to Rachel's
little room, and romance came with them. Rachel's proud, tender heart
struggled, and then gave way before this radiant first love blossoming
in the midst of her loneliness. At last, on a March afternoon, when the
low sun caught the daffodils he had brought her, he told her he loved
her.

Days followed, exquisite days, which have none like them in later life
whatever later life may bring. That year the spring came early, and they
went often together into the country. And that year when all the world
was white with blossom the snow came and laid upon earth's bridal veil a
white shroud. Every cup of May blossom, every petal of hawthorn, bent
beneath its burden of snow. And so it was in the full spring-tide of
Rachel's heart. The snow came down upon it. She discovered at last that
though he loved her he did not wish to marry her; that even from the
time of that first meeting he had never intended to marry her. That
discovery was a shroud. She wrapped her dead love in it, and would fain
have buried it out of her sight.

But only after a year of conflict was she suffered to bury it--after a
year during which the ghost of her dead ever came back, and came back to
importune her vainly with its love. Rachel's poor neighbors grew
accustomed to see the tall, handsome, waiting figure which always
returned and returned, but which at last, after one dreadful day, was
seen no more in Museum Buildings. Rachel had laid the ghost at last. But
the conflict remained graven in her face.

* * * * *

On a certain cold winter morning Hester darted across the wet pavement
from the brougham to the untidy entrance of Museum Buildings where
Rachel still lived. It was a miserable day. The streets and bare trees
looked as if they had been drawn in in ink, and the whole carelessly
blotted before it was dry. All the outlines were confused, blurred. The
cold penetrated to the very bones of the shivering city.

Rachel had just come in, wet and tired, bringing with her a roll of
manuscript to be transcribed. A woman waiting for her on the endless
stone stairs had cursed her for taking the bread out of her mouth.

"He always employed me till you came," she shrieked, shaking her fist at
her, "and now he gives it all to you because you're younger and
better-looking."

She gav