“The trouble was that she cared nothing for the position that she occupied. She honestly believed, poor idiot! that she could be as happy poor as rich. But the great obstacle was her infatuation for the man, and her belief that he was finer and better than the men of her own station. She was dreamy and romantic, and that is why she idealized this fiddling nobody. The more she told me of his gentleness, his refinement, his unselfishness, his poetic nature, the more I saw that he lacked the sterling qualities of manhood, the more I realized that he had made a careful study of her weaknesses and was playing upon them with all the unscrupulous skill of his species. She implored me to meet him, to know him, to study him. Of course that was out of the question. She was sure, she said, that I should come to admire and respect him as she had. I firmly declined to see him. I have even forgotten his name.” There was a pause in the narration. The young man was so still that his guest looked round at him, and found his gaze fastened upon her. She started, for she saw that it held a veiled quality that she did not understand, and that for a moment filled her with uneasiness. He quickly and without a word looked again at the fire. CHAPTER EIGHT THE convalescent thrust aside the momentary depression that her host’s strange expression had given her, and proceeded. “At last I realized that all mild measures would be useless. I knew that at any time something dreadful might happen, and I was determined to save my old schoolmate from the disgrace and sorrow that she was inviting. Without directly encouraging her to proceed as she had started, I gave her to understand that she might always depend upon my friendship. Then I set about the serious work that I had to do.” There was another long pause. “Well?” said her host, a little harshly and impatiently; and that change from no his habitual gentleness gave her a passing wonder. Then she saw that she was hurting him. She had waited for that sign. “I knew that it would be an easy task to match my wit with that of a sentimental, scheming fiddler and a foolish girl. I needn’t give all the details of the plan that I carried out. It was merely a matter of getting an engagement for him somewhere else for a time, and of presenting to her in his absence some evidence of his faithlessness. I knew them both well enough to foresee that she would never let him know what she had heard,--that she would simply send him adrift, and expect him to make an explanation if he was innocent, and that he would be too abashed to demand an explanation from her or make one himself. There was no danger that he would open a way to disprove or even deny the evidence that I produced. “All this, you understand, I did with the greatest delicacy. The plan worked perfectly. They never saw each other again.”