“Have you forgotten what I told you as we waited for the coach that day at Kilmahog?” said Macneillie, bracing himself up as though for some effort. “This house would never have been built if it had not been for you. I saw you hardly took in what I was saying, but it’s as true as that you and I sit here together smoking. I will try to tell you the whole story.” “Years ago, when I was a young fellow playing juvenile lead in Castor’s travelling company, there joined us a little, forlorn girl of sixteen, fresh from school, and utterly innocent. She was very unhappy, and I, naturally enough, fell into the sort of position that you fell into with Ivy Grant. She badly wanted a protector, and I did what I could for her. Well, little by little, this sort of friendship drifted into love, and though our engagement was not made public and was never recognised by her parents, they did not exactly forbid it or in any way hinder our intercourse, being shrewd enough, I suppose, to see that had they done so, their daughter would only have become more resolute and determined. Things drifted on like this for ten years. For five of these years we were acting in the same theatre in London, and I was fairly satisfied to wait, and never once doubted her. But there came a time when she felt hampered in her profession for want of money, and just then came an offer of marriage from a man who, though old enough to be her father, was immensely rich. He had a title moreover, and as far as I know, he was not a bad fellow--had he not been of decent repute, I am sure she would not have married him. Still I had seen enough of him to know that they had not a taste in common, and the misery of it all unhinged me. She was to be married at the close of the season, and every night--twice on Saturdays--we had to act together. It all went on like some ghastly dream”--he pushed back his chair and began to pace the room as though the recollection were intolerable. “The play was invariably ‘Hamlet;’ I have never been able to face the thought of acting the part again. The only thing that carried me through was a sort of desperate resolve to keep up appearances for her sake. There had been, naturally enough, a certain amount of gossip about us, but few knew that we had been actually engaged, and in the very worst of the time there was a sort of odd sense of triumph, for I knew that I was acting behind the scenes with a perfection which I was never likely to touch before the curtain. It told on me, though. When the end of the season came I had been for eight nights without sleep, and after saying good-bye to her, and realising that there was no need to keep up any longer, all power of rational thought seemed suddenly to go from me. I had acted my part so well that she believed that I had become reconciled to the thought of her marriage, and I suppose she thought that I should take that position of friend, which she wished me to take. At any rate her last words were