_Constance._--"Ah, that's the mistake! If that were true, it could never have happened. Other girls, the poorest and plainest, are kept faith with; but I was left. There must have been something about me that made him despise me. Was I silly, mother? Was I too bold, too glad to have him care for me? I was so happy that I couldn't help showing it. May be that displeased him. I must have been dull and tiresome. And I suppose I was somehow repulsive, and at last he couldn't bear it any longer and had to break with me. Did I dress queerly? I know I looked ridiculous at times; and people laughed at me before him." _Mrs. Wyatt._--"Oh, Constance, Constance! Can't you understand that it was his unworthiness alone, his wicked heartlessness?" _Constance_, with gentle slowness.--"No, I can't understand that. It happened after we had learned to know each other so well. If he had been fickle, it would have happened long before that. It was something odious in me that he didn't see at first. I have thought it out. It seems strange now that people could ever have tolerated me." Desolately: "Well, they have their revenge." _Mrs. Wyatt._--"Their revenge on _you_, Constance? What harm did you ever do them, my poor child? Oh, you mustn't let these morbid fancies overcome you. Where is our Constance that used to be,--our brave, bright girl, that nothing could daunt, and nothing could sadden?" _Constance_, sobbing.--"Dead, dead!" _Mrs. Wyatt._--"I can't understand! You are so young still, and with the world all before you. Why will you let one man's baseness blacken it all, and blight your young life so? Where is your pride, Constance?" _Constance._--"Pride? What have I to do with pride? A thing like me!" _Mrs. Wyatt._--"Oh, child, you're pitiless! It seems as if you took a dreadful pleasure in torturing those who love you." _Constance._--"You've said it, mother. I do. I know now that I am a vampire, and that it's my hideous fate to prey upon those who are dearest to me. He must have known, he must have felt the vampire in me." _Mrs. Wyatt._--"Constance!" _Constance._--"But at least I can be kind to those who care nothing for me. Who is this stranger? He must be an odd kind of man to forgive us. What is he, mother?--if he is anything in himself; he seems to me only a likeness, not a reality." _Mrs. Wyatt._--"He is a painter, your father says." Mrs. Wyatt gives a quick sigh of relief, and makes haste to confirm the direction of the talk away from Constance: "He is painting some landscapes here. That friend of his who went to-day is a cousin of your father's old friend, Major Cummings. He is a minister." _Constance._--"What is the painter's name? Not that it matters. But I must call him something if I meet him again." _Mrs. Wyatt._--"Mr. Bartlett."