"I have not told you all. I have purposely kept back something to the end. If I had mingled it with the rest it would have been lost, and as it is my only claim on your sympathy, I have kept it for use by itself. It is unfortunate that even here I have to begin with the confession of another lie, but I have already confessed to so many, I am hoping that one more won't make me sink any lower in your estimation. Besides, my motive in telling it was good. I refer to my old engagement The fact was true, but the details I gave you were false. I had intended telling you the truth, but somehow it stuck on my lips. I felt I ought never to have used so sacred an experience for such a purpose. I _had_ to invent a lie as I went on. But I cut it as short as I could. "I did love the man as, it seemed to me, no woman could have loved a man before. He was almost penniless, but I did not mind that. I would have married him, and he would not have interfered with my ambitions. He would have been content to have me live away from him whilst I worked according to my own spirit, and developed the gifts he was the first to discover in me. For he was a painter, too; had starved to get a training in Europe, had starved while getting it. To help us get a start I was content at first to absorb myself in his work. That was a fatal mistake. I can scarcely trace out how it came about--and to linger on it makes me suffer terribly--but with the lapse of time I ceased to exist for him as a creature of flesh and blood. I suddenly realised that I had become a mere inspiration to him--it was only the artist in me he worshipped. All his heart and soul went into his work--he was no longer a man, but a mere mind wielding a brush. I can see him how absorbed before his canvas, tall and thin with his scholar's stoop--for Nesbit _was_ a scholar! But it had to end at last. I cried bitterly for many a night after. I had a letter from him one fine day----" "Announcing his engagement and asking you to congratulate him?" broke from Paul's lips. His eyes were too dry for tears. "It is the only letter of his I haven't burnt. He is famous now, but the first picture he ever sold went to buy my turquoise necklace to match the comb I had from my mother. His example was a noble one--the first picture I am offered money for shall go to poppa instead. But he would never take the gift back, and now I value it as his. It has always given me great joy to wear it--in fact, that is my one great joy apart from my work." "You still love him! You have loved him all through!" cried Paul. Her face softened. "You see I have quite an extraordinary vein of sentiment in me. I am not sure whether I am not ashamed of it." "Tell me, Lisa--if I may still call you Lisa--all those flirtations you told me about were true?" "What a quaint question! You haven't drunk your coffee." He gulped down the cold contents of the tiny cup at one draught, for his mouth was parched.