Geoffrey Herne's reflections were upon these matters, as he sat in his chair on the spring day with which this story began. An interval of two years had elapsed since he waited for Mrs. Amidon in the drawing-room of the Lansdowne Hotel. During that period his professional success had been rather on the wane. He was as clever and sarcastic as ever--perhaps more so; but he neglected his work. He was morose and indolent; the stimulus to achieve great things was lacking. He conceived himself to have fathomed life and to have proved it worthless. 'What is the odds what a man does? The devil is at the bottom of it all!' he sometimes would remark. His more philosophical and healthy-minded friends detected something petulant or childish in this attitude of his; and the futility of their attempts to induce him to 'throw it off' served to confirm them in their opinion. It should be understood that nothing definite was known about what had occurred further than that Herne had had a row with some woman. But other men have had rows with women, and got over it. The letter which Herne had just received and read was not long, though it was sufficiently suggestive; and it may as well be given here: 'Dear Geoffrey,--I shall never see Mr. Amidon again. I wish to see you at once. I know you must have had hard thoughts of me, but if I had had you always with me, I should have always done what you wish. It is when you leave me that I lose my strength. That is the secret of all our trouble. When we are together I always have known that I love you, and that I can never love anything but you; but when we are parted, other thoughts come; sometimes I imagine that love is all imagination. Geoffrey, I have never told you what I did not know to be true. If you had only made me yours at first! Even as I write to you at this moment, and think of my life since I saw you last, I half doubt whether anything is real of what I have felt for you; and yet they were the deepest feelings of all. I seem fated not to be happy; and yet I have tried ways of happiness more than most women. What is with me is real; what is away from me--you--are like a dream. But you are a dream that I believe in more than in reality; and I come to you in my trouble. Come and see me this evening without fail. I remember what you said to me at parting two years ago. At last I have done my part; I do not ask you to do yours; but at least come to me.--Yours, 'ELLICE.'