147
a leper? Have I really ceased to dream of this grace for me, this vision—as years have passed?"
"Never, alas! I have been haunted by it; however suppressed in my heart. And some thing like its embodiment has crossed my way, really nearly granted me again; more than once. There was a young English officer, with whom I was thrown for many weeks, in a remote Northern city. We became friends; and the confidence between us was so great that I trusted him with the knowledge of what I am. And therewith had I in turn, a confession from him of a like misfortune, the story of his passion for a brother-officer in a foreign service, that made him one of the most wretched men on the face of the world—while everyone in his circle of home-intimates and regimental friends fancied that he had not a trouble in life! There was, too, one summer in Bosnia, a meeting with a young Austrian architect; a fellow of noble beauty and of high, rich nature. There was a Polish friend, a physician—now far off in Galizien. There was an Italian painter in Rome. But such incidents were not full in
