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sake—for our friendship's sake—do not care less for me because I am weary of struggling on thus alone! I shall not try to play hero, even to myself... not any longer. Oswald..., listen... you told me your story. Well, I have a story to tell you... Then you will understand. Wait... wait... one moment!... I must think how, where, to begin. My story is short compared with yours, and not so bitter; yet it is no pleasant one."
As he uttered the last few words, seated there beside me, whatever sympathy I could ever feel for any human creature went out to him, unspeakably. For, now, now, the trouble flashed into my mind! Of course it was to be the old, sad tale—he loved, loved unhappily—a woman!
The singer! The singer of Pray! That wife of his friend Karvaly. The woman whose fair and magnetic personality, had wrought unwittingly or wittingly, her inevitable spell upon him! One of those potent and hopeless passions, in which love, and probably loyalty to
