WE visited France, Germany, and Italy; and we were absent fromEngland nearly two years.

Had time and change justified my confidence in them? Was theimage of Mrs. Van Brandt an image long since dismissed from mymind?

No! Do what I might, I was still (in the prophetic language ofDame Dermody) taking the way to reunion with my kindred spirit inthe time to come. For the first two or three months of ourtravels I was haunted by dreams of the woman who had soresolutely left me. Seeing her in my sleep, always graceful,always charming, always modestly tender toward me, I waited inthe ardent hope of again beholding the apparition of her in mywaking hours--of again being summoned to meet her at a givenplace and time. My anticipations were not fulfilled; noapparition showed itself. The dreams themselves grew lessfrequent and less vivid and then ceased altogether. Was this asign that the days of her adversity were at an end? Having nofurther need of help, had she no further remembrance of the manwho had tried to help her? Were we never to meet again?

I said to myself: "I am unworthy of the name of man if I don'tforget her now!" She still kept her place in my memory, say whatI might.

I saw all the wonders of Nature and Art which foreign countriescould show me. I lived in the dazzling light of the best societythat Paris, Rome, Vienna could assemble. I passed hours on hoursin the company of the most accomplished and most beautiful womenwhom Europe could produce--and still that solitary figure atSaint Anthony's Well, those grand gray eyes that had rested on meso sadly at parting, held their place in my memory, stamped theirimage on my heart.

Whether I resisted my infatuation, or whether I submitted to it,I still longed for her. I did all I could to conceal the state ofmy mind from my mother. But her loving eyes discovered thesecret: she saw that I suffered, and suffered with me. More thanonce she said: "George, the good end is not to be gained bytraveling; let us go home." More than once I answered, with thebitter and obstinate resolution of despair: "No. Let us try morenew people and more new scenes." It was only when I found herhealth and strength beginning to fail under the stress ofcontinual traveling that I consented to abandon the hopelesssearch after oblivion, and to turn homeward at last.

I prevailed on my mother to wait and rest at my house in Londonbefore she returned to her favorite abode at the country-seat inPerthshire. It is needless to say that I remained in town withher. My mother now represented the one interest that held menobly and endearingly to life. Politics, literature,agriculture--the customary pursuits of a man in my position--hadnone of them the slightest attraction for me.

We had arrived in London at what is called "the height of theseason." Among the operatic attractions of that year--I amwriting of the days when the ballet was still a popular form ofpublic entertainment--there was a certain dancer whose grace andbeauty were the objects of universal admiration. I was asked if Ihad seen her, wherever I went, until my social position, as theone man who was indifferent to the reigning goddess of the stage,became quite unendurable. On the next occasion when I was invitedto take a seat in a friend's box, I accepted the proposal; and(far from willingly) I went the way of the world--in other words,I went to the opera.

The first part of the performance had concluded when we got tothe theater, and the ballet had not yet begun. My friends amusedthemselves with looking for familiar faces in the boxes andstalls. I took a chair in a corner and waited, with my mind faraway from the theater, from the dancing that was to come. Thelady who sat nearest to me (like ladies in general) disliked theneighborhood of a silent man. She determined to make me talk toher.

"Do tell me, Mr. Germaine," she said. "Did you ever see a theateranywhere so full as this theater is to-night?"

She handed me her opera-glass as she spoke. I moved to the frontof the box to look at the audience.

It was certainty a wonderful sight. Every available atom of space(as I gradually raised the glass from the floor to the ceiling ofthe building) appeared to be occupied. Looking upward and upward,my range of view gradually reached the gallery. Even at thatdistance, the excellent glass which had been put into my handsbrought the faces of the audience close to me. I looked first atthe pe rsons who occupied the front row of seats in the gallerystalls.

Moving the opera-glass slowly along the semicircle formed by theseats, I suddenly stopped when I reached the middle.

My heart gave a great leap as if it would bound out of my body.There was no mistaking _that_ face among the commonplace facesnear it. I had discovered Mrs. Van Brandt!

She sat in front--but not alone. There was a man in the stallimmediately behind her, who bent over her and spoke to her fromtime to time. She listened to him, so far as I could see, withsomething of a sad and weary look. Who was the man? I might, ormight not, find that out. Under any circumstances, I determinedto speak to Mrs. Van Brandt.

The curtain rose for the ballet. I made the best excuse I couldto my friends, and instantly left the box.

It was useless to attempt to purchase my admission to thegallery. My money was refused. There was not even standing roomleft in that part of the theater.

But one alternative remained. I returned to the street, to waitfor Mrs. Van Brandt at the gallery door until the performance wasover.

Who was the man in attendance on her--the man whom I had seensitting behind her, and talking familiarly over her shoulder?While I paced backward and forward before the door, that onequestion held possession of my mind, until the oppression of itgrew beyond endurance. I went back to my friends in the box,simply and solely to look at the man again.

What excuses I made to account for my strange conduct I cannotnow remember. Armed once more with the lady's opera-glass (Iborrowed it and kept it without scruple), I alone, of all thatvast audience, turned my back on the stage, and riveted myattention on the gallery stalls.

There he sat, in his place behind her, to all appearancespell-bound by the fascinations of the graceful dancer. Mrs. VanBrandt, on the contrary, seemed to find but little attraction inthe spectacle presented by the stage. She looked at the dancing(so far as I could see) in an absent, weary manner. When theapplause broke out in a perfect frenzy of cries and clapping ofhands, she sat perfectly unmoved by the enthusiasm which pervadedthe theater. The man behind her (annoyed, as I supposed, by themarked indifference which she showed to the performance) tappedher impatiently on the shoulder, as if he thought that she wasquite capable of falling asleep in her stall. The familiarity ofthe action--confirming the suspicion in my mind which had alreadyidentified him with Van Brandt--so enraged me that I said or didsomething which obliged one of the gentlemen in the box tointerfere. "If you can't control yourself," he whispered, "youhad better leave us." He spoke with the authority of an oldfriend. I had sense enough left to take his advice, and return tomy post at the gallery door.

A little before midnight the performance ended. The audiencebegan to pour out of the theater.

I drew back into a corner behind the door, facing the gallerystairs, and watched for her. After an interval which seemed to beendless, she and her companion appeared, slowly descending thestairs. She wore a long dark cloak; her head was protected by aquaintly shaped hood, which looked (on _her_) the most becominghead-dress that a woman could wear. As the two passed me, I heardthe man speak to her in a tone of sulky annoyance.

"It's wasting money," he said, "to go to the expense of taking_you_ to the opera."

"I am not well," she answered with her head down and her eyes onthe ground. "I am out of spirits to-night."

"Will you ride home or walk?"

"I will walk, if you please."

I followed them unperceived, waiting to present myself to heruntil the crowd about them had dispersed. In a few minutes theyturned into a quiet by-street. I quickened my pace until I wasclose at her side, and then I took off my hat and spoke to her.

She recognized me with a cry of astonishment. For an instant herface brightened radiantly with the loveliest expression ofdelight that I ever saw on any human countenance. The momentafter, all was changed. The charming features saddened andhardened. She stood before me like a woman overwhelmed byshame--without uttering a word, without taking my offered hand.

Her companion broke the silence.

"Who is this gentleman?" he asked, speaking in a foreign accent,with an under-bred insolence of tone and manner.

She controlled herself the moment he addressed her. "This is Mr.Germaine," she answered: "a gentleman who was very kind to me inScotland." She raised her eyes for a moment to mine, and tookrefuge, poor soul, in a conventionally polite inquiry after myhealth. "I hope you are quite well, Mr. Germaine," said the soft,sweet voice, trembling piteously.

I made the customary reply, and explained that I had seen her atthe opera. "Are you staying in London?" I asked. "May I have thehonor of calling on you?"

Her companion answered for her before she could speak.

"My wife thanks you, sir, for the compliment you pay her. Shedoesn't receive visitors. We both wish you good-night."

Saying those words, he took off his hat with a sardonicassumption of respect; and, holding her arm in his, forced her towalk on abruptly with him. Feeling certainly assured by this timethat the man was no other than Van Brandt, I was on the point ofanswering him sharply, when Mrs. Van Brandt checked the rashwords as they rose to my lips.

"For my sake!" she whispered, over her shoulder, with animploring look that instantly silenced me. After all, she wasfree (if she liked) to go back to the man who had so vilelydeceived and deserted her. I bowed and left them, feeling with nocommon bitterness the humiliation of entering into rivalry withMr. Van Brandt.

I crossed to the other side of the street. Before I had takenthree steps away from her, the old infatuation fastened its holdon me again. I submitted, without a struggle against myself, tothe degradation of turning spy and following them home. Keepingwell behind, on the opposite side of the way, I tracked them totheir own door, and entered in my pocket-book the name of thestreet and the number of the house.

The hardest critic who reads these lines cannot feel morecontemptuously toward me than I felt toward myself. Could I stilllove a woman after she had deliberately preferred to me ascoundrel who had married her while he was the husband of anotherwife? Yes! Knowing what I now knew, I felt that I loved her justas dearly as ever. It was incredible, it was shocking; but it wastrue. For the first time in my life, I tried to take refuge frommy sense of my own degradation in drink. I went to my club, andjoined a convivial party at a supper table, and poured glassafter glass of champagne down my throat, without feeling theslightest sense of exhilaration, without losing for an instantthe consciousness of my own contemptible conduct. I went to mybed in despair; and through the wakeful night I weakly cursed thefatal evening at the river-side when I had met her for the firsttime. But revile her as I might, despise myself as I might, Iloved her--I loved her still!

Among the letters laid on my table the next morning there weretwo which must find their place in this narrative.

The first letter was in a handwriting which I had seen oncebefore, at the hotel in Edinburgh. The writer was Mrs. VanBrandt.

"For your own sake" (the letter ran) "make no attempt to see me,and take no notice of an invitation which I fear you will receivewith this note. I am living a degraded life. I have sunk beneathyour notice. You owe it to yourself, sir, to forget the miserablewoman who now writes to you for the last time, and bids yougratefully a last farewell."

Those sad lines were signed in initials only. It is needless tosay that they merely strengthened my resolution to see her at allhazards. I kissed the paper on which her hand had rested, andthen I turned to the second letter. It contained the "invitation"to which my correspondent had alluded, and it was expressed inthese terms:

"Mr. Van Brandt presents his compliments to Mr. Germaine, andbegs to apologize for the somewhat abrupt manner in which hereceived Mr. Germaine's polite advances. Mr. Van Brandt suffershabitually from nervous irritability, and he felt particularlyill last night. He trusts Mr. Germaine will receive this candidexplanation in the spirit in which it is offered; and he begs toadd that Mrs. Van Brandt will be delighted to receive Mr.Germaine whenever he may find it convenient to favor her with avisit."

That Mr. Van Brandt had some sordid interest of his own to servein writing this grotesquely impudent composition, and that theunhappy woman who bore his name was heartily ashamed of theproceeding on which he had ventured, were conclusions easilydrawn after reading the two letters. The suspicion of the man andof his motives which I naturally felt produced no hesitation inmy mind as to the course which I had determined to pursue. On thecontrary, I rejoiced that my way to an interview with Mrs. VanBrandt was smoothed, no matter with what motives, by Mr. VanBrandt himself.

I waited at home until noon, and then I could wait no longer.Leaving a message of excuse for my mother (I had just sense ofshame enough left to shrink from facing her), I hastened away toprofit by my invitation on the very day when I received it.