"Two days after I did see her. She wrote and asked me to meet her and her mother, and take them out in the gardens.
"I went; but the mother I didn't see. She said she'd follow.
"It was dusk, and the moon was getting up—almost full. I'll remember that night, Harry, as long as I live. We met. She looked pretty, but there was something so cold—so—-well, I don't know what about her—that I felt a kind of chill go through me when she spoke. I might have been a friend only.
"The evening set in. It was bright moonlight. We walked on together, not talking much—for married people, who had hardly met.
"We were in the Fitzroy gardens. Fine gardens, too. I could show you the foot of earth we stood on. There were trees all round. It was so quiet, and the moonlight stole through the branches, and threw long shadows over the grass. There was no wind; nothing stirring, nothing near us.
"Harry, did you ever feel it was your duty to love a woman?
"She had never said a kind word to me since we were married; but now she turned in the moonlight and stopped.
"There was a pair of great, big beautiful eyes looking into mine, a pair of little white arms flung around my neck, and in another minute her head fell upon my shoulder, and she burst out crying.
"I'm not stone, Harry. The girl was my wife. I lifted up her head, and kissed her.
"If ever a woman spoke words that a man could construe into love she spoke them then.
"I felt then—she was my wife—it was my duty to love her. I think for the next five minutes I did care about her, and while we stood there, a future I had never thought of opened up—and I was happy.
