The girl he loved! Bah! I knew her, though I did not tell him so. She was a dark-haired, pink-and-white beauty that flitted through artistic Bohemia like a butterfly in a hothouse. The sight of the pictured face brought back to me the memory of days long past--of a closed chapter in my life's history. I remembered the first time I saw Ethel Broughton, fully five years before. She wore a soiled pink wrapper, her satin slippers were trodden down at heel, and she had a bottle of champagne at her elbow. At that time her lover, grandiloquent and impecunious Mr. Harry Oranmore, a bad but handsome actor, had been untrue to her, and she, a third-rate actress, who had an _ingenue_ part at a Strand theatre, was reviling him. I had been taken to her house and introduced by a mutual friend, but she scarcely heeded me. Probably she was thinking of Oranmore, for she clasped her slim fingers round her suffering throat, and offered up an occasional sob, following it with a silent but protracted draught from her glass. The result of this interview was but natural. Dazzled by her beauty, I sympathised with her, endeavoured to cheer her, and concluded by falling violently in love with her. At that time I was writing numbers of dramatic criticisms, and I confess I used what weight my opinions possessed for the purpose of her advancement. It is needless to refer to the smooth and uninterrupted course of our love. Suffice it to say that we were both Bohemians, and that within a year I had the satisfaction of sitting before the footlights, watching her make her debut as "leading lady" at a West End theatre, and a few days later of observing her photograph exhibited in shop windows among those of other stage beauties. But, alas! those halcyon days were all too brief. Suddenly the scales fell from my eyes. A scene occurred between us--and we parted. To think that sin should lie for years in the blood, just as arsenic does in a corpse! When I discovered that Dick Carruthers was wasting the very honest and ardent emotions of his heart at this feverish fairy's shrine, I resolved to take him aside, and, without admitting that I knew her, give him a verbal drubbing. I did so, but he bit his moustache fiercely, and turned upon me. "She is charming," he said, "and I love her." "Ah! I know the type--" "You know nothing, old fellow!" he exclaimed, flushing angrily. "But"-- he shrugged his shoulders--"the prejudices of the world count for--what? Nothing at all. The curse of the Philistine is his Philistinism." "Very well, Dick, old chap, forget my words," I said. "I approach your idol in the properly reverential spirit." "You shall see her before long." His gaze grew bright, soft, and vague, as one who catches glimpses of the floating garments of supernatural mysteries. "Ah, she is lovely! Only an artist can appreciate her beauty."