er a while, "it is about those letters
I want to speak to you. They are here," and he unlocked a drawer and
drew from it a little silver box. "I always keep them here. The key of
the drawer is on this ring, and this little gold key is the key of the
box itself. I tell you this, because I have what you may regard as a
strange request to make.

"I suppose most men would consider it their duty either to burn these
letters, or leave instructions for them to be buried with them. That is
a gruesome form of sentiment in which I have too much imagination to
indulge. Both my ideas of duty and sentiment take a different form. The
surname of the writer of these letters is nowhere revealed in them, nor
are there any references in them by which she could ever be identified.
Therefore the menace to her fair fame in their preservation is not a
question involved. Now when the simplest woman is in love, she writes
wonderfully; but when a woman of imagination and intellect is caught by
the fire of passion, she becomes a poet. Once in her life, every such
woman is an artist; once, for some one man's unworthy sake, she becomes
inspired, and out of the fulness of her heart writes him letters warm
and real as the love-cries of Sappho. Such are the letters in this
little box. They are the classic of a month's passion, written as no man
has ever yet been able to write his love. Do you think it strange then
that I should shrink from destroying them? I would as soon burn the
songs of Shelley. They are living things. Shall I selfishly bury the
beating heart of them in the silence of the grave?

"So, Mesurier," he continued, affectionately, "when I met you and
understood something of your nature, I thought that in you I had found
one who was worthy to guard this treasure for me, and perhaps pass it on
again to some other chosen spirit--so that these beautiful words of a
noble woman's heart shall not die--for when a man loves a woman,
Mesurier, as you yourself must know, he is insatiable to hear her
praise, and it is agony for him to think that her memory may suffer
extinction. Therefore, Mesurier,--Henry, let me call you,--I want to
give the memory of my love into your hands. I want you to love it for
me, when perhaps I can love it no more. I want you sometimes to open
this box, and read in these letters, as if they were your own; I want
you sometimes to speak softly the name of 'Helen,' when my lips can
speak it no more."

Such was the beautif