"Rosa!" I repeated.

"Go back to London," she went on. "You have ambitions. Fulfil them.

Work at your profession. Above all, don't think of me. And always

remember that though I am very grateful to you, I cannot love

you--never!"

"That isn't true, Rosa!" I said quietly. "You have invited me into

this carriage simply to lie to me. But you are an indifferent liar--it

is not your forte. My dear child, do you imagine that I cannot see

through your poor little plan? Mrs. Sullivan Smith has been talking to

you, and it has occurred to you that if you cast me off, the anger of

that--that thing may be appeased, and I may be saved from the fate

that overtook Alresca. You were calling on Emmeline to ask her advice

finally, as she appears to be mixed up in this affair. Then, on seeing

me, you decided all of a sudden to take your courage in both hands,

and dismiss me at once. It was heroic of you, Rosa; it was a splendid

sacrifice of your self-respect. But it can't be. Nothing is going to

disturb my love. If I die under some mysterious influence, then I die;

but I shall die loving you, and I shall die absolutely certain that

you love me."

Her breast heaved, and under the carriage rug her hand found mine and

clasped it. We did not look at each other. In a thick voice I called

to the coachman to stop. I got out, and the vehicle passed on. If I

had stayed with her, I should have wept in sight of the whole street.

I ate no dinner that evening, but spent the hours in wandering up and

down the long verdurous alleys in the neighborhood of the Arc de

Triomphe. I was sure of Rosa's love, and that thought gave me a

certain invigoration. But to be sure of a woman's love when that love

means torture and death to you is not a complete and perfect

happiness. No, my heart was full of bitterness and despair, and my

mind invaded by a miserable weakness. I pitied myself, and at the

same time I scorned myself. After all, the ghost had no actual power

over me; a ghost cannot stab, cannot throttle, cannot shoot. A ghost

can only act upon the mind, and if the mind is feeble enough to allow

itself to be influenced by an intangible illusion, then-But how futile were such arguments! Whatever the power might be, the

fact that the ghost had indeed a power over me was indisputable. All

day I had felt the spectral sword of it suspended above my head. My

timid footsteps lingering on the way to the hotel sufficiently proved

its power. The experiences of the previous night might be merely

subjective--conceptions of the imagination--but they were no less

real, no less fatal to me on that account.




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