and have welded them together, with the ardor of an impassioned imagination, into an ingenious chain of circumstantial evidence. A tenth-rate lawyer in a frontier village would pull it all to pieces in five minutes of cross-examination. He would prove, to the satisfaction of the dullest jury, that there existed not the slightest reasonable ground for my suspicions and inferences; that I was wantonly maligning my uncle, my brother, and my innocent cousin,—whose supposed gypsy extraction was due solely to her happening to be a good-looking brunette. The jury would bring me in guilty of malicious libel without leaving their seats, and I should be sentenced without having a word to say in my own defence. And this is Frank Mainwaring, Esq., M.D.!
At all events, I ought henceforth to entertain a profound respect for this imagination of mine, the power of which I have never until now appreciated. It is certainly the most effective feature of my character, apart from which I possess no life or activity worth mentioning. It is not only my imagination that has made me fall in love, but, were the attributes which I have imagined to invest my lady-love proved to be non-existent, I should undoubtedly cease to feel the slightest interest in her. It is not herself that I love, in other words: it is something that I have endowed her with,—something proper to my own mind,—in short, myself! And cannot I love myself without going into raptures and heroics and I know not what more and worse? Decidedly, Frank Mainwaring, Esq., M.D., you are neither more nor less than a fool!
**********
Sinfire has just left me.
She did not stay long, and I do not know that either of us said much; but it has made a great difference. She entered abruptly and swiftly, with a stealthy, ophidian movement that somehow reminded me of Sâprani. All the flush and the mockery and the brightness were gone out of her face, which was ivory pale and with a sort of rigidity in its beautiful lines. All her life seemed to be in her eyes; but they did not flash or sparkle: they absorbed light, and gave none forth.
I was sitting in the big arm-chair, at my writing-table, and before I could rise she was at my side, and her hand, lightly pressed on my shoulder, kept me down. I put up my hand and took hers in it. Presently she half seated herself on the arm of the chair. She was breathing deeply, but for several moments she did not speak. Her hand was cold, and its grasp upon mine nervously tightened and relaxed, and tightened again, without her appearing to be aware of it. I
