prepared for me as if sure I was to fill the place I had left, hoping that this confidence of hers would have its due effect upon me. It did try me sorely, but an experience once over is as if it had never been, as far as regret or indecision is concerned; therefore wedding gowns and imperious women failed to move me. To be left a groomless bride stung that fiery pride of hers more than many an actual shame or sin would have done. People would pity her, would see her loss, deride her wilful folly. Gabriel loved her as she desired to be loved, blindly and passionately; few knew of our later bond, many of our betrothal, why not let the world believe me the rejected party come back for a last appeal? I had avoided all whom I once knew, for I loathed the place; no one had discovered me at the hospital, she thought me gone, she boldly took the step, married the poor boy, left Cuba before I was myself again, and won herself an empty victory which I never shall disturb."
"How strange! Yet I can believe it of her, she looked a woman who would dare do anything. Then you came back, Adam, to find me? What led you here, hoping so much and knowing so little?"
"Did you ever know me do anything in the accustomed way? Do I not always aim straight at the thing I want and pursue it by the shortest road? It fails often, and I go back to the slower surer way; but my own is always tried first, as involuntarily as I hurled myself down that slope, as if storming a fort instead of meeting my sweetheart. That is a pretty old word beloved of better men than I, so let me use it once. Among the first persons I met on landing was a friend of your father's; he was just driving away in hot haste, but catching a glimpse of the
