"I CONGRATULATE you, Mr. Germaine, on your power of painting inwords. Your description gives me a vivid idea of Mrs. VanBrandt."

"Does the portrait please you, Miss Dunross?"

"May I speak as plainly as usual?"

"Certainly!"

"Well, then, plainly, I don't like your Mrs. Van Brandt."

Ten days had passed; and thus far Miss Dunross had made her wayinto my confidence already!

By what means had she induced me to trust her with those secretand sacred sorrows of my life which I had hitherto kept for mymother's ear alone? I can easily recall the rapid and subtlemanner in which her sympathies twined themselves round mine; butI fail entirely to trace the infinite gradations of approach bywhich she surprised and conquered my habitual reserve. Thestrongest influence of all, the influence of the eye, was nothers. When the light was admitted into the room she was shroudedin her veil. At all other times the curtains were drawn, thescreen was before the fire--I could see dimly the outline of herface, and I could see no more. The secret of her influence wasperhaps partly attributable to the simple and sisterly manner inwhich she spoke to me, and partly to the indescribable interestwhich associated itself with her mere presence in the room. Herfather had told me that she "carried the air of heaven with her."In my experience, I can only say that she carried something withher which softly and inscrutably possessed itself of my will, andmade me as unconsciously obedient to her wishes as if I had beenher dog. The love-story of my boyhood, in all its particulars,down even to the gift of the green flag; the mystic predictionsof Dame Dermody; the loss of every trace of my little Mary offormer days; the rescue of Mrs. Van Brandt from the river; theapparition of her in the summer-house; the after-meetings withher in Edinburgh and in London; the final parting which had leftits mark of sorrow on my face--all these events, all thesesufferi ngs, I confided to her as unreservedly as I have confidedthem to these pages. And the result, as she sat by me in thedarkened room, was summed up, with a woman's headlong impetuosityof judgment, in the words that I have just written--"I don't likeyour Mrs. Van Brandt!"

"Why not?" I asked.

She answered instantly, "Because you ought to love nobody butMary."

"But Mary has been lost to me since I was a boy of thirteen."

"Be patient, and you will find her again. Mary is patient--Maryis waiting for you. When you meet her, you will be ashamed toremember that you ever loved Mrs. Van Brandt--you will look onyour separation from that woman as the happiest event of yourlife. I may not live to hear of it--but _you_ will live to ownthat I was right."

Her perfectly baseless conviction that time would yet bring aboutmy meeting with Mary, partly irritated, partly amused me.

"You seem to agree with Dame Dermody," I said. "You believe thatour two destinies are one. No matter what time may elapse, orwhat may happen in the time, you believe my marriage with Mary isstill a marriage delayed, and nothing more?"

"I firmly believe it."

"Without knowing why--except that you dislike the idea of mymarrying Mrs. Van Brandt?"

She knew that this view of her motive was not far from being theright one--and, womanlike, she shifted the discussion to newground.

"Why do you call her Mrs. Van Brandt?" she asked. "Mrs. VanBrandt is the namesake of your first love. If you are so fond ofher, why don't you call her Mary?"

I was ashamed to give the true reason--it seemed so utterlyunworthy of a man of any sense or spirit. Noticing my hesitation,she insisted on my answering her; she forced me to make myhumiliating confession.

"The man who has parted us," I said, "called her Mary. I hate himwith such a jealous hatred that he has even disgusted me with thename! It lost all its charm for me when it passed _his_ lips."

I had anticipated that she would laugh at me. No! She suddenlyraised her head as if she were looking at me intently in thedark.

"How fond you must be of that woman!" she said. "Do you dream ofher now?"

"I never dream of her now."

"Do you expect to see the apparition of her again?"

"It may be so--if a time comes when she is in sore need of help,and when she has no friend to look to but me."

"Did you ever see the apparition of your little Mary?"

"Never!"

"But you used once to see her--as Dame Dermody predicted--indreams?"

"Yes--when I was a lad."

"And, in the after-time, it was not Mary, but Mrs. Van Brandt whocame to you in dreams--who appeared to you in the spirit, whenshe was far away from you in the body? Poor old Dame Dermody. Shelittle thought, in her life-time, that her prediction would befullfilled by the wrong woman!"

To that result her inquiries had inscrutably conducted her! Ifshe had only pressed them a little further--if she had notunconsciously led me astray again by the very next question thatfell from her lips--she _must_ have communicated to _my_ mind theidea obscurely germinating in hers--the idea of a possibleidentity between the Mary of my first love and Mrs. Van Brandt!

"Tell me," she went on. "If you met with your little Mary now,what would she be like? What sort of woman would you expect tosee?"

I could hardly help laughing. "How can I tell," I rejoined, "atthis distance of time?"

"Try!" she said.

Reasoning my way from the known personality to the unknown, Isearched my memory for the image of the frail and delicate childof my remembrance: and I drew the picture of a frail and delicatewoman--the most absolute contrast imaginable to Mrs. Van Brandt!

The half-realized idea of identity in the mind of Miss Dunrossdropped out of it instantly, expelled by the substantialconclusion which the contrast implied. Alike ignorant of theaftergrowth of health, strength, and beauty which time andcircumstances had developed in the Mary of my youthful days, wehad alike completely and unconsciously misled one another. Oncemore, I had missed the discovery of the truth, and missed it by ahair-breadth!

"I infinitely prefer your portrait of Mary," said Miss Dunross,"to your portrait of Mrs. Van Brandt. Mary realizes my idea ofwhat a really attractive woman ought to be. How you can have feltany sorrow for the loss of that other person (I detest buxomwomen!) passes my understanding. I can't tell you how interestedI am in Mary! I want to know more about her. Where is that prettypresent of needle-work which the poor little thing embroideredfor you so industriously? Do let me see the green flag!"

She evidently supposed that I carried the green flag about me! Ifelt a little confused as I answered her.

"I am sorry to disappoint you. The green flag is somewhere in myhouse in Perthshire."

"You have not got it with you?" she exclaimed. "You leave herkeepsake lying about anywhere? Oh, Mr. Germaine, you have indeedforgotten Mary! A woman, in your place, would have parted withher life rather than part with the one memorial left of the timewhen she first loved!"

She spoke with such extraordinary earnestness--with suchagitation, I might almost say--that she quite startled me.

"Dear Miss Dunross," I remonstrated, "the flag is not lost."

"I should hope not!" she interposed, quickly. "If you lose thegreen flag, you lose the last relic of Mary--and more than that,if _my_ belief is right."

"What do you believe?"

"You will laugh at me if I tell you. I am afraid my first readingof your face was wrong--I am afraid you are a hard man."

"Indeed you do me an injustice. I entreat you to answer me asfrankly as usual. What do I lose in losing the last relic ofMary?"

"You lose the one hope I have for you," she answered,gravely--"the hope of your meeting and your marriage with Mary inthe time to come. I was sleepless last night, and I was thinkingof your pretty love story by the banks of the bright Englishlake. The longer I thought, the more firmly I felt the convictionthat the poor child's green flag is destined to have its innocentinfluence in forming your future life. Your happiness is waitingfor you in that artless little keepsake! I can't explain orjustify this belief of mine. It is one of my eccentricities, Isuppose--like training my cats to perform to the music of myharp. But, if I were your old friend, instead of being only yourfriend of a few days, I would leave you no peace--I would beg andentreat and persist, as only a woman _can_ persist--until I hadmade Mary's gift as close a companion of yours, as your mother'sportrait in the locket there at your watch-chain. While the flagis with you, Mary's influence is with you; Mary's love is stillbinding you by the dear old tie; and Mary and you, after years ofseparation, will meet again!"

The fancy was in itself pretty and poetical; the earnestnesswhich had given expression to it would have had its influenceover a man of a far harder nature than mine. I confess she hadmade me ashamed, if she had done nothing more, of my neglect ofthe green flag.

"I will look for it the moment I am at home again," I said; "andI will take care that it is carefully preserved for the future."

"I want more than that," she rejoined. "If you can't wear theflag about you, I want it always to be _with_ you--to go whereveryou go. When they brought your luggage here from the vessel atLerwick, you were particularly anxious about the safety of yourtraveling writing-desk--the desk there on the table. Is thereanything very valuable in it?"

"It contains my money, and other things that I prize far morehighly--my mother's letters, and some family relics which Ishould be very sorry to lose. Besides, the desk itself has itsown familiar interest as my constant traveling companion of manyyears past."

Miss Dunross rose, and came close to the chair in which I wassitting.

"Let Mary's flag be your constant traveling companion," she said."You have spoken far too gratefully of my services here as yournurse. Reward me beyond my deserts. Make allowances, Mr.Germaine, for the superstitious fancies of a lonely, dreamywoman. Promise me that the greenflag shall take its place among the other little treasures inyour desk!"

It is needless to say that I made the allowances and gave thepromise--gave it, resolving seriously to abide by it. For thefirst time since I had known her, she put her poor, wasted handin mine, and pressed it for a moment. Acting heedlessly under myfirst grateful impulse, I lifted her hand to my lips before Ireleased it. She started--trembled--and suddenly and silentlypassed out of the room.