“PS. Think of it. To-morrow night by this time I shall have met her again. Don’t grin. You married a Spaniard; and for love too. And you’re not ashamed of being beastly happy. R. D. “PPS. Mind. I hold you to your promise. If there is any real trouble about M. and I need you, you are to come the moment I wire. Be a good pal, and don’t back down. But I think I shall worry through on my own.” I have given this letter because it explains the circumstances of my presence in Lisbon. A love quest. In the previous March, my sister’s husband, Stefan Madrillo, who is on the staff of the Spanish Embassy in Paris, had introduced me to Miralda Dominguez--the most beautiful girl in Paris as she was generally acknowledged; and although up to that moment I had never cared for any woman, except my sister, and the thought of marriage had never entered my head, the whole perspective of life was changed on the instant. The one desire that possessed me was to win her love; the one possible prospect which was not utterly barren and empty of everything but wretchedness, was that she would give herself to me for life. I had one advantage over the crowd of men whom the lodestone of her beauty drew round her. I had lived in her country, spoke her language as readily as my own, and could find many interests in common. Naturally I played that for all it was worth. From the first moment of meeting I was enslaved by her stately grace, her ravishing smile, her soft, liquid, sympathetic voice, the subtle but ineffable charm of her presence, and the dark lustrous eyes into which I loved to bring the changing lights of surprise, curiosity, interest and pleasure. I was miserable when away from her; and should have been wholly happy in her presence if it had not been for the despairing sense of unworthiness which plagued and depressed me. She was a goddess to me, and I a mere clod. For three weeks--three crazily happy and yet crazily miserable weeks for me--this had continued; and then I had been wired for at a moment’s notice, owing to my dear father’s sudden illness. I had to leave within an hour of the receipt of the telegram, without a chance of putting the question on which my whole happiness depended, without even a word of personal leave-taking. And for the whole of the four months since that night I had had to remain in England. During nearly all the time my father lay hovering between life and death. At intervals, uncertain and transitory, he regained consciousness; and at such moments his first question was for me. I could not think of leaving him, of course; and even when the end came, the settlement of the many affairs connected with the large fortune he left delayed me a further two or three weeks.