I remember at the last I saw her coming down a wide staircase, with her bridesmaids fluttering about her and laughing; I think she had been crying. I know her eyes looked piteous, and her lips were quivering; but perhaps people thought that was quite the proper thing at a wedding, and with a young bride going away from home. Then, as she reached the foot of the stairs, she stopped for a moment to speak specially to one or two friends; and I was among the number. She put her hand in mine for a moment, and her lips formed the words "Good-bye"; but she could not speak. I stood there still as death; I wonder that no one noticed me. Then she was gone, and the crowd had broken up. I found something in my hand; it was a tiny folded paper. I remember every word of it now; it was burnt in upon my brain, never to be effaced so long as I should live. "Because I love you and trust you, I give you this, my dear, to read and then to burn. You will do that because I ask it. You have been very brave and very gentle with me; you are going always to be very brave and very gentle, so that I may carry that memory of you in my heart. I have thought of you in secret, although I shall do so no more, as my poor Prince Charlie--wandering alone, far from his kingdom; only, unlike the other poor Prince Charlie, you have no one to comfort you. Good-bye, you are not to think of me; and yet I pray that you may think of me a little. You will be my dream-love always. BARBARA." I read it over and over until I had got it by heart--until, in fact, I knew every turn and twist of the dear writing; then I burnt it, and destroyed even the ashes. I was vaguely comforted by it; the thing was not so bitter as it might have been, because above all else I held her spirit, and she was mine in that sense, if in no other. And God knows at that time I had no other thought of her; I want that understood clearly, so that it may be understood, too, how little I deserved all that was to happen to me. I walked about for a long time, and then I went back to the hotel; I had made up my mind to stay there for that night, and then to get to London. I have wished since, often and often, that I had gone straight back to that quiet life in town--that I had never stopped in that place until perforce I must stay the night. My guardian had asked me earlier in the day about my movements, and I had told him that I intended to stop at Hammerstone Market. He seemed curious as to how I was going to spend the evening--seemed, indeed, anxious about me; so that I was not altogether surprised when he presently appeared in my room, and told me that he had arranged a supper party that night, and that he wanted me to be present. "I'd rather stay quietly here, thank you," I told him brusquely. "I'm in no mood for supper parties to-night. Leave me alone."