“I used to watch for his coming, and at the first sound of his footsteps ran away, unable to meet him, dreading to meet him, lest he should see how passionately I loved him. I was too young and inexperienced to even ever so faintly imagine that he wanted to marry me for anything but love. Yet one thing recurs to my mind. We were in the garden, and I wanted to press some very beautiful leaves that had fallen from a plant. He took a bundle of what looked like old letters from his pocket and, tearing one in half, gave it to me. “‘Save the leaves in that,’ he said. ‘It is a letter I wrote, but never sent.’ “Days afterward, when I went to fetch the leaves and press them, I read in his own handwriting these words: “‘In the present state of affairs, such a marriage would be an excellent speculation for me.’ “Yet it never occurred to me that he was writing of his own marriage--his marriage with me. I remember going to my mother’s grave and bending over the long flowers to tell her that I was so happy, so happy that earth seemed like heaven; that a noble, princely Englishman had come from over the seas and was going to make me his wife; that I loved him. Then I failed for want of words; even to my mother among the angels in heaven I could not say how much, how dearly, how well I loved him. I could only bury my head in the flowers, and tell her of my deep, unutterable joy. “It seemed like a dream--a poet’s dream--all beautiful and all unreal. I remember the white gleams of moonlight, when my lover, with his handsome Saxon face, all in a glow, would tell me of Shakespeare’s Juliet, and how Romeo loved her, swearing that I was a thousand times more fair. Is it a wonder that I hate my own name when I remember all he said of it?” CHAPTER XLI. THE STORY CONTINUED. “I was married in a quaint old church outside Granada. My husband was enraptured with me; for a few short weeks I was the happiest of women. I thought the world so beautiful, so bright, that heaven could hardly surpass it. I thought my husband the perfection of knighthood, the truest gentleman and the noblest man I had ever met. He did not stay long in Granada. My eyes might have been open to his true character, his gross, cruel selfishness, but that I was blind, for he left the city without one word of advice to Donna Maria, without thanking her for the care she had taken of me, above all, without what I am sure that lady expected--making her a handsome present. “I was blind then and for long afterward, until the cruel hour of my awakening came. Sir Alfred took me for a bridal tour through Italy; there was but one fault that I saw in him; that was a decided love of gambling.