walls amid clouds of incense. I was seeing myself, too, going through the world as a homeless straggler. To have stretched out our hands for the golden wine of life, to have been so near to quaffing it when the cup was dashed from our lips, seemed cruel and monstrous. It was as much as I could do to keep up the flow of conversation with out painful pauses; and when Mrs. Hill rose and left us, giving me another look of supplication as she passed out , my impatience could support itself no longer.
“So you are going away, Lucy?” I said.
“Yes," she answered in a faint voice.
"You are going into the convent?” I said.
“I have made all preparations,” she said, and she indicated some of them.
“And are we to part like this, Lucy?”
“It is better so,” she said. “I thank God that I saw what it was right to do before it was too late to do it.”
“You are thinking of me,” I said.
“How can I help it?” she answered. “When I remember that you are now at the beginning of life, and how nearly, though unwittingly, I had wrecked everything, not only for yourself, but perhaps for your children——”
“You still think you are under the curse?” I said.
“How can I think otherwise?” she replied. “Remember my grandfather and my father, and think of myself. Then your own experiment seemed to prove it.”
“But have you not reflected,” I said, “that the power of such an idea is only in proportion to the belief in it? That is the true psychology of a curse, always. When you see a man, or a family, or even a nation, laboring like blind Samson against what seems like fate, if you look closely you will find that the only fact is the fancy. That is your own case, Lucy. There is nothing really amiss with you. You have only to deny belief to the idea that killed your grandfather and your father, and all will be well.”
She remained unshaken. “It is impossible,” she said. “At all events I dare not trust myself.”
I came to closer quarters. “And what about me?” I asked.
“You,” she answered in a faltering voice, “you are to forget me.”
“Forget you, Lucy?”
“No, not that, either,” she said. “I cannot wish you to forget me. I shall always remember your goodness, Robert, and—and I wish you to think of me as—as one who is lost to you in death.”
“But it is not death, Lucy—that's the cruelty of it. It has none of the peace of death, and I cannot reconcile myself to it.”
She could not answer me, and I saw that her bosom was heaving.
“Lucy,” I said, “have you nothing more to say to me?”
“Nothing,” she answered in a breaking voice. “Yet wait! Yes, I have something to say.”
“What is it?”.
“I thought I had already gone through our last hour of parting.”
“When?”
“When you were in London, and I was here alone.”
It was very hard to go on. “Well?” I asked.
“I had hoped you would not come again, Robert, but since you have come, there is one thing you can do—you have not done it yet.”
“Tell me what it is, Lucy.”
“Release me from our engagement. Do it for my sake. It is my last request. Will you?”.
“I will.”
“You are very good.”
“But I have something to say, Lucy.”
“Yes.”
I passed over to the other side of the table, and leaned on the back of the chair beside her.
“Lucy,” I said, “you are living under the influence of an idea which takes the form of fate itself. It follows you and clouds your whole existence. Now, I am living under the influence of an idea also.”
She shuddered and said, “Is it a curse?”
“No, but a blessing,” I replied. And then I told her of my mother's dream, my mother's fancy, my mother's dying hope. A hush fell on the room as I spoke, and I could see that my dear one was deeply touched.
“That is very, very beautiful,” she said in a hushed whisper, and then, with a quick glance, “but do you believe it?”
I summoned all my resolution, and replied, “With all my heart.”
“You believe that in the fullness of time it will come to pass?”
“I do.”
Her eyes began to glisten with tears, and she said, not without effort, “That must be a great, great source of strength to you, Robert—to think that you will marry and be happy, and have children, and that they will do well in the world some day——”
She was breaking down. I had plowed deeply, and torn at the tenderest fibers.
