given you the
answer which you wished. But I have seen so much sorrow, and I
am of such a gloomy disposition, that I am not fit for cheerful
society, and I know you would regret your choice.

"I shall think very often and very gratefully of you, and shall
not forget the words on that little German baby's gravestone.
Good-bye.

"IMOGEN PINCKNEY."

Putnam felt stunned and benumbed on first reading this letter. Then he
read it over mechanically two or three times. The date was a month old,
but the postmark showed that it had just been mailed. She must have
postponed her departure somewhat after writing it, or the person with
whom it had been left had neglected to post it till now. He felt a
sudden oppression and need of air, and taking his hat left the house. It
was evening, and the first snow of the season lay deep on the ground.
Anger and grief divided his heart. "It's too bad! too bad!" he murmured,
with tears in his eyes: "she might have given me one chance to speak.
She hasn't been fair to me. What's the matter with her, anyhow? She has
brooded and brooded till she is downright melancholy-mad;" and then,
with a revulsion of feeling, "My poor darling girl! Here she has been,
sick and all alone, sitting day after day in that cursed graveyard. I
ought never to have gone to the mountains: I ought to have stayed. I
might have known how it would turn out. Well, it's all over now, I
suppose."

He had taken, half unconsciously, the direction of the cemetery, and now
found himself at the entrance. The gate was locked, but he climbed over
the wall and waded through the snow to the spot where he had sat with
her so many summer afternoons. The wicker chair was buried out of sight
in a drift. A scarcely-visible undulation in the white level marked the
position of the mound, and the headstone had a snow-cap. The cedars
stood black in the dim moonlight, and the icy coating of their boughs
rattled like candelabra. He stood a few moments near the railing, and
then tore the letter into fragments and threw them on the snow. "There!
good-bye, good-bye!" he said bitterly as the wind carried them skating
away over the crust.

But what was that? The moon cast a shadow of Henry Pinckney's headstone
on the snow, but what was that other and similar shadow beyond it?
Putnam had been standing edgewise to the slab: he shifted his position
now and saw a second stone and a second mound s