ideal woman as a sculptor might mould the plaster caste which precedes the finished statue. Ever and anon, he keeps changing his ideal as the days speed by, perchance making her older, gayer or sadder as his moods and ideas develop and grow more mature. Till at last there comes a day when he meets her, as he supposes, a girl who resembles the one he has pictured in his mind. He sees the one and thinks of the other, till at length he recreates the two into one, the living one. But finally a day arrives when he realizes his mistake and laughs at his foolishness, but the re-separating of the two is hard and causes him many an hour of indescribable misery, but when it is over and the bitterness is past, he rejoices and is glad. Such a woman was Catherine Lucio. I mistook her for my ideal because of the physical resemblance.
"Now, it so happened that in Teheran there dwelt another youth, Abdulla Pasha, a Musselman, who also became enamored by her beauty. He lived in a veritable palace of surprising magnificence. I knew her first, but she cast me aside at his coming, believing him to be the richer. A short while afterwards, they were married, and the experience made me very bitter with the world, and I left Teheran, journeyed to the Isle of Constantine and settled down to a life of solitude in this ancient fortress. Some six months later, Abdulla Pasha moved to Kishm, for some unknown reason, with his wife, the beautiful, haughty Catherine Lucio. One day he came to Constantine, very gloomy. It seemed his wife had turned out a Tartar, a spendthrift, and all his money and wealth
