he acquaintance.

Here, again, Lucian's invincible habit of kindness kept him from telling
her the truth, his invincible habit of not taking responsibility made
him avoid the responsibility of telling her. He, too, trusted to time.

And there was time enough, certainly; that is, it would have been enough
for any one but Rosalie Bogardus. Five years passed, five years of all
the torture intermixed with delight which a woman who loves goes
through. Now and then they met, and she always wrote to him; she tried
to write lightly, as she knew he liked that; she anathematized herself
for taking everything in such a ponderous way. She composed long letters
about books, about Spanish and Italian, both of which she was studying,
about music, and about pictures; she went to see every picture she could
hear of, because he painted, not realizing, poor soul, that those who
paint themselves, especially those who paint "a little," do not as a
general rule care much for pictures, or at least care only for those of
a few of their immediate contemporaries, that interest being principally
curiosity. Who fill the great galleries of Europe day after day? Who are
the people that go again and again? Almost without exception the people
who do not paint; for the people who do, it is noticed that one or two
visits amply suffice.

But nature will out--at least some natures will. At the end of these
five years of a fictitious existence Rosalie Bogardus fell seriously
ill; her life was threatened. Then she wrote three trembling lines to
Lucian, at Gracias-a-Dios. Her one wish now was to marry him, in order
to be able to leave him her fortune; she did not allude to this, but she
said that she was probably dying, and hoped to see him soon. Lucian,
kind as always, hurried north to Washington, where she was staying with
some friends--much more independent now, as regarded her relatives, than
she had been before the growth of her love. He married her; it was as
well that he had been perfectly sincere, when he did so, in not thinking
about her money, because her money did not come to him; she did not die,
but improved rapidly; in two months she was well.

Mrs. Lucian Spenser, as has been said, was not a quick or a clever
woman, but she had the clairvoyance of love. A year had not passed since
her marriage; but it does not take a year for a wife to discover that
her husband is not, and never has been, in love with her, and this wife
had no longer any il