discovered; and putting the key in your hands, I went abroad. I wanted to satisfy myself that you were unworthy, and believed you would betray the trust. For four years I wandered, restless, impatient, scorning myself more and more because I could not forget your sweet, pure, haunting face; because, despite my jeers, I knew that I loved you. At last I wrote to my mother from Egypt that I should go to Central Persia, and so I intended. But one night as I sat alone, smoking, amid the ruins of the propylon at Philas, a vision of Le Bocage rose before me, and your dear face looked at me from the lotus-crowned columns of the ancient temple. I forgot the hate I bore all mankind; I forgot every thing but you; your pure, calm, magnificent eyes; and the longing to see you, my darling--the yearning to look into your eyes once more, took possession of me. I sat there till the great, golden, dewless dawn of the desert fell upon Egypt, and then came a struggle long and desperate. I laughed and swore at my folly; but far down in the abysses of my distorted nature hope had kindled a little feeble, flickering ray. I tried to smother it, but its flame clung to some crevice in my heart, and would not be crushed. While I debated, a pigeon that dwelt somewhere in the crumbling temple fluttered down at my feet, cooed softly, looked in my face, then perched on a mutilated red granite sphinx immediately in front of me, and after a moment rose, circled above me in the pure, rainless air and flew westward. I accepted it as an omen, and started to America instead of to Persia. On the night of the tenth of December, four years after I bade you good-bye at the park gate, I was again at Le Bocage. Silently and undiscovered I stole into my own house, and secreted myself behind the curtains in the library. I had been there one hour when you and Gordon Leigh came in to examine the Targum. Oh, Edna! how little you dreamed of the eager, hungry eyes that watched you! During that hour that you two sat there bending over the same book, I became thoroughly convinced that while I loved you as I never expected to love any one, Gordon also loved you, and intended if possible to make you his wife. I contrasted my worn, haggard face and grayish locks with his, so full of manly hope and youthful beauty, and I could not doubt that any girl would prefer him to me. Edna, my retribution began then. I felt that my devil was mocking me, as I had long mocked others, and made me love you when it was impossible to win you. Then and there I was tempted to spring upon and throttle you both before he triumphantly called you his. At last Leigh left, and I escaped to my own rooms. I was pacing the floor when I heard you cross the rotunda and saw the glimmer of the light you carried. Hoping to see you open the little Taj, I crawled behind the sarcophagus that holds my two mummies, crouched close to the floor, and peeped at you across the gilded byssus that covered them. My eyes, I have often been told,