"I will put it back on the shelf," I said, "and you shall never think of it again. I seem fated to wound your tender feelings. Dear little girl, you know I do not mean to." But it was she who would not drop the subject. "It is shameful to print such a book," she repeated. "It is like a proposal made just before we left America, to publish the names on the pension roll." I had an opinion on the latter suggestion, decidedly in its favor. So I explained that it was feared there were names on the list that ought not to be there and believed that a publication of the roll would result in weeding these out. "And at the same time expose the honest poverty of half a million brave men!" she said. "All my people were on the Southern side, but I admire courage and devotion, wherever it is found. To expose the recipient of these pensions merely in the hope of detecting a few dishonest ones is shameful! So with that awful book. Some of the men pictured there may be trying to redeem themselves. What chance will they have with their faces exhibited everywhere? Oh, Don, Don! You seem a tender hearted man. How can you endorse such a wicked, cruel thing?" I said I did not wish to argue the matter, but I understood from the preface that only persons belonging to the criminal class by profession were pictured in the book. The miserable man who had made his one error was not in the list at all. "But who can tell," she said, growing earnest, "that even some you mention have not repented of their acts and are trying to redeem themselves? Did you never read these words of Shakespeare? "Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once, And He that might the vantage best have took Found out the remedy!" We went to the other side of the veranda, where the moon was shining beautifully, and took chairs side by side. I gradually succeeded in turning my companion's thoughts from the disagreeable trend into which I had brought them, and for several hours we discussed other matters. We spoke in low tones, for after a short time we were the only persons awake on the premises. We both grew to feel the spell of the Queen of Night, nowhere more lovely than over the Caribbean. Our hands wandered together and I felt strange thrills that made me wish I were even closer to the lovely being at my side. In spite of the promises I had made--to her and to myself--I could not help talking nonsense. "What harm would it do," I said, at 11 o'clock, "when I leave you at your door at night, if you gave me just a little--a very little--kiss? It would sweeten my slumbers, I am sure, and it wouldn't hurt you." "It would sweeten your slumbers--perhaps," she replied, soberly. "And it would drive mine away entirely. Do you think that a fair transaction?" I chose to answer that I thought she was acting cruelly and added that if she was going to treat me in that way I would go to bed at once. She was evidently agitated by my manner, for when we reached her door she stopped.