ark of her parents. She had bright
curls tied with ribbons. I pranced on horseback for her. She smiled
for me.

"I was young and strong then, full of hope and full of the beginning of
things. I thought I was going to conquer the world, and even had the
choice of the means to conquer it. Alas, all I did was to cross
hastily over its surface. She was younger than I, a bud so recently,
blown, that one day, I remember, I saw her doll lying on the bench that
we were sitting on. We used to say to each other, 'We shall come back
to this park when we are old, shall we not?' We loved each other--you
understand--I have no time to tell you, but you understand, Anna, that
these few relics of memory that I give you at random are beautiful,
incredibly beautiful.

"She died the very day in spring when the date of our wedding was set.
We were both taken sick with a disease that was epidemic that year in
our country, and she did not have the strength to escape the monster.
That was twenty-five years ago. Twenty-five years, Anna, between her
death and mine.

"And now here is the most precious secret, her name."

He whispered it. I did not catch it.

"Say it over again, Anna."

She repeated it, vague syllables which I caught without being able to
unite them into a word.

"I confide the name to you because you are here. If you were not here,
I should tell it to anyone, no matter whom, provided that would save
it."

He added in an even, measured voice, to make it hold out until the end:

"I have something else to confess, a wrong and a misfortune."

"Didn't you confess it to the priest?" she asked in surprise.

"I hardly told him anything," was all he replied.

And he resumed, speaking calmly, with his full voice:

"I wrote poems during our engagement, poems about ourselves. The
manuscript was named after her. We read the poems together, and we
both liked and admired them. 'Beautiful, beautiful!' she would say,
clapping her hands, whenever I showed her a new poem. And when we were
together, the manuscript was always with us--the most beautiful book
that had ever been written, we thought. She did not want the poems to
be published and get away from us. One day in the garden she told me
what she wanted. 'Never! Never!' she said over and over again, like an
obstinate, rebellious child, tossing her dainty head with its dancing
hair."

The man's voice became at once surer and more tremulous, as he filled
in a