"I went with my friend George (who shared my room) one afternoon and called at Annie's school; she kept an infants' school of her own. She came to the door herself. It was the first time I had seen her in daylight, and I thought her cheek-bones bigger; she certainly was not so pretty as on the first evening I met her. George had told me he would sleep away if I wanted the room, and when next I met her she promised to come and sleep with me. Before I had always met her on the grass, under trees. She came, and the sight of her young limbs and breasts revived something of my love for her, my better love. But she was insatiable and more sensual every day. One day she came when I was not well, and would not go away disappointed. I had met a very pretty girl about this time, and now resolved to give Annie up, which I did in the cruelest manner, cutting her dead, and refusing to answer her letters and touching messages. I heard that she would cry for hours, but I was harder than adamant.... "I thought myself very much in love with the very pretty girl for whom I had thrown up Annie. She lived with her mother and two sisters, one older than herself, the other a mere child. The eldest sister, a handsome, dark girl like a Spaniard, was not virtuous. She was good natured; too much so, and took her pleasure with several of us, dying, not long after, of consumption. I thought her sister, my girl, was virtuous, and I meant to marry her--some day. At any rate, I saw her mother, who lived in a well-furnished house and was a superior woman. This did not prevent my trying to seduce her daughter. I did not succeed for a long time, though she did not cease meeting me. The sisters came to see us. I knew, one night, her sister was upstairs with D. and I guessed what they were at, so I suggested to her she should creep up on them for fun. She did so, came back, excited and pale--and gave herself to me. But she was not a virgin and in time I had a glimpse of her unhappy fate and her mother's position. Her father was dead or divorced, and her mother, I believe, was mistress to some wealthy bookmaker. I am not sure, there was always a mystery hanging over the mother, nor am I certain that she connived at her daughter's seduction, but the girl's account was that after some successful Cup day there had been too much champagne drunk all around, and that a man she looked on as a friend came into her bedroom that night when she was _tête montée_ and seduced or violated her--whichever word you like to choose. Since then his visits had been frequent until she met me, she said, and if I would be true to her she would be a true wife to me, and I believed her and still believe she meant what she said. But I left Melbourne shortly after this, our