handed to me, saying--

"See what you think of these, Mr. Royle!"

One after another I opened them. They were all in the same sprawly
handwriting of a woman--a woman who simply signed herself "Mittie."

They were love-letters written in the long ago, many commencing "My
darling," or "Dearest," and some with "Dear old Dig."

Though it seemed mean of me to peer into the closed chapter of my
friend's history, I quickly found myself absorbed in them. They were the
passionate outpourings of a brave but overburdened heart. Most of them
were dated from hotels in the South of England and in Ireland, and were
apparently written at the end of the eighties. But as no envelopes had
been preserved they gave no clue to where the addressee had been at the
time.

Nearly all were on foreign notepaper, so we agreed that he must have been
abroad.

As I read, it became apparent that the writer and the addressee had been
deeply in love with one another, but the lady's parents had forbidden
their marriage; and as, alas! in so many like cases, she had been induced
to make an odious but wealthier marriage. The man's name was Francis.

"He is, alas! just the same," she wrote in one letter dated
"Mount Ephraim Hotel, at Tunbridge Wells, Thursday": "We have
nothing in common. He only thinks of his dividends, his stocks
and shares, and his business in the City always. I am simply an
ornament of his life, a woman who acts as his hostess and
relieves him of much trouble in social anxieties. If father had
not owed him seventeen thousand pounds he would, I feel certain,
never have allowed me to marry him. But I paid my father's debt
with my happiness, with my very life. And you, dear old Dig, are
the only person who knows the secret of my broken heart. You
will be home in London seven weeks from to-day. I will meet you
at the old place at three o'clock on the first of October, for I
have much--so very much--to tell you. Father knows now how I
hate this dull, impossible life of mine, and how dearly I love
your own kind self. I told him so to-day, and he pities me. I
hope you will get this letter before you leave, but I shall
watch the movements of your ship, and I shall meet you on the
first of October. Till then adieu.--Ever your own MITTIE."

At the old place! Where was it, I wondered? At what spot had the secret
meeting been effected between the man who had returned fro