Doctor Vardaman did not answer, did not even hear; he was in an enchantment, his lips moving unconsciously as he read. The beauty of the lines stirred him with an almost painful sense of enjoyment. "Ah, thin, Docthor, asthore!" "'When you and I behind the Veil are passed, Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last!'" read the doctor aloud. He looked up vaguely, still under the spell. "What is it, Mrs. Maginnis?" "Here's a man to see yez about th' pla-ace." Doctor Vardaman clapped Omar shut briskly. In the phrase of a poet as yet unknown to the world, he turned a keen, untroubled face, Home to the instant need of things. "Send him in." The man came in, closed the door quietly, and stood at attention while the doctor examined him. It was evident that he was a little nervous, yet respectfully anxious to conceal it. "What is your name?" "James Huddesley, sir." "You have a reference?" Huddesley produced a worn letter and handed it over. The doctor read it through carefully. It certified that the bearer of this, James Huddesley, was honest, sober and capable; he had lived with the writer four years as butler, and fifteen months as valet and general man. "This is dated two years back," said the doctor, as he returned it. "Was that your last place?" "For steady work--yes, sir." "Why did you leave it? And what have you been doing in the meantime?" "If you please, sir," said Huddesley, looking down. "Hi've 'ad misfortunes. Hi left 'is lordship, thinkin' to better myself by settin' hup in a small way--in a pub., sir. It was no go, sir, Hi 'adn't 'ad the experience, and Hi didn't like the life. Hi lost my money, hall Hi'd saved hup, and--and----" He hesitated, fingering his hat. "And 'a little that was my wife's, if you'll hexcuse me mentioning my haffairs, sir. Then she went back to 'er people, and--Hi just come away, Hi couldn't stand it." "I didn't want a married man," said the doctor reluctantly. "It's just the same as bein' single, sir, beggin' yer parding," said Huddesley, staring out of the window. "She won't never come back to me no more--she said so. And there wasn't any children--'e died, the baby did." The doctor was touched oddly by this sordid little romance of the kitchen and backstairs. Perhaps certain long, long dead and buried hopes, dreams, disappointments of his own stirred, faintly responsive beneath their graves; oh, that grim, arid little cemetery walled off in some corner of every heart! Ghosts walk about it, and we call them Regrets. "What have you been doing since?" the old man asked gently.