o one you would have cared about, Frank," he replied.

I sat with him and took a cup of coffee, whilst waiting for the train.
He was wretchedly gloomy; scarcely spoke indeed; I could not make it
out. From time to time he sighed heavily, and I noticed that his eyes
were red, as if he had been crying.

"What is the matter?" I asked.

"I will tell you later, perhaps. It is very hard; parting is like
dying," and his eyes filled with tears.

We were soon in the train running out into the night. I was as
light-hearted as could be. At length I was free of journalism, I
thought, and I was going to the South to write my Shakespeare book, and
Oscar would work, too, when the conditions were pleasant. But I could
not win a single smile from him; he sat downcast, sighing hopelessly
from time to time.

"What on earth's the matter?" I cried. "Here you are going to the
sunshine, to blue skies, and the wine-tinted Mediterranean, and you're
not content. We shall stop in a hotel near a little sun-baked valley
running down to the sea. You walk from the hotel over a carpet of pine
needles, and when you get into the open, violets and anemones bloom
about your feet, and the scent of rosemary and myrtle will be in your
nostrils; yet instead of singing for joy the bird droops his feathers
and hangs his head as if he had the 'pip.'"

"Oh, don't," he cried, "don't," and he looked at me with tears filling
his eyes; "you don't know, Frank, what a great romantic passion is."

"Is that what you are suffering from?"

"Yes, a great romantic passion."

"Good God!" I laughed; "who has inspired this new devotion?"

"Don't make fun of me, Frank, or I will not tell you; but if you will
listen I will try to tell you all about it, for I think you should know,
besides, I think telling it may ease my pain, so come into the cabin and
listen.

"Do you remember once in the summer you wired me from Calais to meet you
at Maire's restaurant, meaning to go afterwards to Antoine's Theatre,
and I was very late? You remember, the evening Rostand was dining at the
next table. Well, it was that evening. I drove up to Maire's in time,
and I was just getting out of the victoria when a little soldier passed,
and our eyes met. My heart stood still; he had great dark eyes and an
exquisite olive-dark face--a Florentine bronze, Frank, by a great
master. He looked like Napoleon when he was first Consul, only--less
imperious, more beautiful....

"I got out hypnotised