"She was a beautiful woman, the only daughter of a retired city merchant, and fond of the admiration of successful men. That she loved me before I attained to eminence in the various professions in which the fiend had compelled me to dabble, I had much reason to believe; but I had never ventured to make love to her in dead earnest, because I feared for the result. She had often said to me that while she should never marry for riches and position, she did not intend to fall in love with any man just because he had neither, and that no man need ever propose marriage to her who was not reasonably sure of a successful career. It was not selfishness that led her to think and speak in this manner, but a realizing sense of the unhappy fact that mediocrity married is as hopeless as a broken-winded race-horse in harness. There is plenty of ambition but no future, and as she often said, 'Where hopelessness comes, happiness dwelleth not!'" "A daughter of Solomon, I wot," interrupted Toppleton. "Yes," said the spirit, with a sigh for her he had lost, "and rather superior to the old gentleman in a great many ways. Of course I understood, and, lacking achievement in my profession, discreetly held my tongue on the subject of matrimony, taking good care, however, when I called never to let any other fellow outstay me, unless perchance he was some poor drivelling idiot from whose immediate present the laurel was further removed than from my own. She understood me, I think, though I never put that point to a practical test by a proposal of marriage. This was the state of affairs at the time of my first meeting with the fiend, and for a year subsequent to that ill-starred night upon which he first crossed my path I let matters take their own course, waiting a favourable opportunity to ask the great question, upon the answer to which hung all my future happiness. I could see that with my increasing fame, her interest in me waxed; but as every passing day brought new and undreamed-of distinctions she grew more and more reserved toward me--a most feminine trait that, Hopkins. When a woman begins to love a man in dead earnest, in nine cases out of ten she will make him feel that he is utterly abhorrent to her, and it's a good thing she does, because it makes him look carefully into his own character in an endeavour to discover and to root out all the undesirable features thereof. It is this that enables love to redeem men whom the world considers irredeemable, so, of course, I had no feeling of discouragement at her growing coldness, for, understanding women, I knew exactly what it meant. I think I was more or less of an enigma to her." "I should think it likely," said Toppleton. "If she really knew you, she must have been mightily surprised at your sudden strides towards universal genius. It's a wonder to me that she did not suspect the enigma, and give it up."