"I have been your doting wife when you sang to her, your children when you made them laugh till they cried. I've been Lady Archibald when you danced the Dieppoise after tea, in Dover, with your little bare legs; and Aunt Caroline, too, as she nursed you in Malines after that silly duel where you behaved so well; and I've been by turns Mérovée Brossard, Bonzig, old Laferté, Mlle. Marceline, Finche Torfs, poor little Marianina, Julia Royce, Father Louis, the old Abbé, Bob Maurice--all the people you've ever charmed, or amused, or been kind to--a legion; good heavens! I have been them all! What a snowball made up of all these loves I've been rolling after you all these years! and now it has all got to melt away in a single night, and with it the remembrance of all I've ever been during ages untold. "And I've no voice to bid you good-bye, my beloved; no arms to hug you with, no eyes to weep--I, a daughter of the most affectionate, and clinging, and caressing race of little people in existence! Such eyes as I once had, too; such warm, soft, furry arms, and such a voice--it would have wanted no words to express all that I feel now; that voice--nous savons notre orthographie en musique là bas! "How it will please, perhaps, to remember even this farewell some day, when we're all together again, with nothing to come between! "And now, my beloved, there is no such thing as good-bye; it is a word that has no real meaning; but it is so English and pretty and sweet and child-like and nonsensical that I could write it over and over again--just for fun! "So good-bye! good-bye! good-bye! till I wake up once more after a long living sleep of many years, I hope; a sleep filled with happy dreams of you, dear, delightful people, whom I've got to live with and love, and learn to lose once more; and then--no more good-byes! "Martia." * * * * * So much for Martia--whoever or whatever it was that went by that name in Barty's consciousness. After such close companionship for so many years, the loss of her--or it--was like the loss of a sixth and most valuable sense, worse almost than the loss of his sight would have been; and with this he was constantly threatened, for he most unmercifully taxed his remaining eye, and the field of his vision had narrowed year by year. But this impending calamity did not frighten him as in the old days. His wife was with him now, and as long as she was by his side he could have borne anything--blindness, poverty, dishonor--anything in the world. If he lost her, he would survive her loss just long enough to put his affairs in order, and no more.