“And then began a strange period in my life. Shortly after this episode came a partial triumph of the reform element in my city; the grafters were ousted, and I found myself with more than a local reputation, and thrust into an office. My life was now even more of a public matter than before. We entertained largely. We were always in the public eye. Before our guests and in public we were always all that should be. But when the occasion was past, we would drop the mask, turn from each other with dumb faces, and go each our severed ways. “For a year this sort of life kept up. I still worked; but now I worked to forget. When I allowed myself to think of her at all, it was always as of some one who was dead. Or so I told myself, over and over again, until I believed it. “One day there was a close election. I was the successful candidate. I was to go to Congress. All evening and far into the night my wife and I played our parts well. But when the last congratulation had been received, and the last speech made, and the last friend had gone, and we were alone with each other once more, she turned to me with a look something like the one she had met me with on that summer evening a year before. “'I want to speak with you,' she said. “'Yes?' “They were the first words we had exchanged in that year, when not compelled by the necessities. “'What do you wish to speak about?' I asked her. “'You know,' she said, briefly. And I did know. There was little use trying to deny it. “'Why have you asked me no questions?' she said. “I would have made another attempt to pass the situation over without going into it, but I saw that that would be impossible. She had reached the place where she must speak. I read all this in her face. And looking at her closely with the first candid glance I had given her in that year, I saw that she had changed greatly, but she was still beautiful. “'I did not choose to open the subject with you,' I said; 'I thought that you would explain when you could stand it no longer. Evidently that time has come. You were to me like a dead person. If the dead have any messages for me, they must bring them to me unsolicited. It was not my place to hunt among the tombs.' “'No,' she said, 'let us be honest, since it is the last talk we may ever have together. Let us be frank with each other, and with ourselves. I was not like a dead person to you. The dead are dead, and I am not. You asked me no questions because you disdained me so. You despised me so--and it was sweet to you to make me feel the full weight of your scorn through this silence. It was better than killing me. Is that not the real reason?' “'Yes,' I admitted, 'that is it. That is the truth.' “'Listen,' she said, 'it would surprise you--would it not--to learn that I still love you--that I have loved you all along--that you are the only man I have ever really loved--that I love you now? All that is incredible to you, is it not?'