"Yes, it is indeed curious," I said. "Our circumstances are, in a measure, identical. We have both been the victims of dire misfortunes, both broken by the tragedy of an unhappy love. But you have told me hardly anything concerning yourself," I added. The laces of her muslin blouse rose slowly and fell again. In that dim light I detected a hardness at the corners of her mouth, a hardness that, to me, was all-sufficient proof of the bitterness wearing out her young heart. "Myself!" she echoed sadly. "What need I say about myself? It is of the past, and the memory of it all is a very bitter one. Like you, I believed that happiness was to be mine, the more so, because my father entirely approved of our union. He made confidential inquiries concerning him, and found that he was all that he represented himself to be. But love and happiness were not for me. I, alas! am one of those who are debarred the sweetness of life," she added hoarsely, her small white hands clenching themselves, as thoughts of the past crowded upon her. For some time we were again silent. I was anxious to know the truth of the love romance of my sweet-faced little friend--the girl whom Sammy had denounced as an adventuress. Yet surely there was nothing of the adventuress about her as she stood there in her plain white frock amid that purely English scene. I glanced at her countenance and saw that it was pale and agitated, and that her nervous lips were trembling. Her chin had sunk upon her breast and she stood deep in thought as though unconscious of my presence. "Where did it occur? Here?" "No, abroad," she answered, in a thin, mechanical voice. "I met him when we were living at Enghien, and from the first moment of our meeting we discovered that by some strange magnetism we were drawn irresistibly together. He was a foreigner, it is true, but his mother had been English, and his father was a Chilian." "Chilian!" I cried, in a voice of surprise. But she never guessed the reason of my amazement. "Yes. My father discovered that we met in secret, and then invited him to dine with us. From that evening he came daily out from Paris, and we used to spend each afternoon boating on the lake or playing tennis on the island. Before long we had pledged our love, and then commenced days of bliss such as I had never before experienced. I knew at last what was meant by perfect happiness, for we adored each other. I loved him just as dearly as Ella loved you. I would have died for him. Yet in all too short a time the blow fell upon me--the blow that has crushed all life from me, that has already made me a world-weary woman before my time." "And what was the end?" I asked with deep sympathy, yet, alas! knowing too well the story of the tragedy.