There came a night when the husband was alone in that streetwaiting. He can do nothing for you now, little nurserygoverness, you must fight it out by yourself; when there aregreat things to do in the house the man must leave. Oh, man,selfish, indelicate, coarse-grained at the best, thy woman's hourhas come; get thee gone.

He slouches from the house, always her true lover I do believe,chivalrous, brave, a boy until to-night; but was he ever unkindto her? It is the unpardonable sin now; is there the memory ofan unkindness to stalk the street with him to-night? And if notan unkindness, still might he not sometimes have been a littlekinder?

Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always to try tobe a little kinder than is necessary?

Poor youth, she would come to the window if she were able, I amsure, to sign that the one little unkindness is long forgotten,to send you a reassuring smile till you and she meet again; and,if you are not to meet again, still to send you a reassuring,trembling smile.

Ah, no, that was for yesterday; it is too late now. He wandersthe streets thinking of her tonight, but she has forgotten him.In her great hour the man is nothing to the woman; their love istrivial now.

He and I were on opposite sides of the street, now becomefamiliar ground to both of us, and divers pictures rose before mein which Mary A---- walked. Here was the morning after my onlyentry into her house. The agent had promised me to have theobnoxious notice-board removed, but I apprehended that as soon asthe letter announcing his intention reached her she would removeit herself, and when I passed by in the morning there she was ona chair and a foot-stool pounding lustily at it with a hammer. When it fell she gave it such a vicious little kick.

There were the nights when her husband came out to watch for thepostman. I suppose he was awaiting some letter big with the fateof a picture. He dogged the postman from door to door like anassassin or a guardian angel; never had he the courage to ask ifthere was a letter for him, but almost as it fell into the box hehad it out and tore it open, and then if the door closeddespairingly the woman who had been at the window all this timepressed her hand to her heart. But if the news was good theymight emerge presently and strut off arm in arm in the directionof the pork emporium.

One last picture. On summer evenings I had caught glimpses ofthem through the open window, when she sat at the piano singingand playing to him. Or while she played with one hand, she flungout the other for him to grasp. She was so joyously happy, andshe had such a romantic mind. I conceived her so sympatheticthat she always laughed before he came to the joke, and I am sureshe had filmy eyes from the very start of a pathetic story.

And so, laughing and crying, and haunted by whispers, the littlenursery governess had gradually become another woman, glorified,mysterious. I suppose a man soon becomes used to the greatchange, and cannot recall a time when there were no babessprawling in his Mary's face.

I am trying to conceive what were the thoughts of the younghusband on the other side of the street. "If the barrier is tobe crossed to-night may I not go with her? She is not so braveas you think her. When she talked so gaily a few hours ago, O myGod, did she deceive even you?"

Plain questions to-night. "Why should it all fall on her? Whatis the man that he should be flung out into the street in thisterrible hour? You have not been fair to the man."

Poor boy, his wife has quite forgotten him and his trumpery love.If she lives she will come back to him, but if she dies she willdie triumphant and serene. Life and death, the child and themother, are ever meeting as the one draws into harbour and theother sets sail. They exchange a bright "All's well" and passon.

But afterward?

The only ghosts, I believe, who creep into this world, are deadyoung mothers, returned to see how their children fare. There isno other inducement great enough to bring the departed back. They glide into the acquainted room when day and night, theirjailers, are in the grip, and whisper, "How is it with you, mychild?" but always, lest a strange face should frighten him, theywhisper it so low that he may not hear. They bend over him tosee that he sleeps peacefully, and replace his sweet arm beneaththe coverlet, and they open the drawers to count how many littlevests he has. They love to do these things.

What is saddest about ghosts is that they may not know theirchild. They expect him to be just as he was when they left him,and they are easily bewildered, and search for him from room toroom, and hate the unknown boy he has become. Poor, passionatesouls, they may even do him an injury. These are the ghosts thatgo wailing about old houses, and foolish wild stories areinvented to explain what is all so pathetic and simple. I knowof a man who, after wandering far, returned to his early home topass the evening of his days in it, and sometimes from his chairby the fire he saw the door open softly and a woman's faceappear. She always looked at him very vindictively, and thenvanished. Strange things happened in this house. Windows wereopened in the night. The curtains of his bed were set fire to. A step on the stair was loosened. The covering of an old well ina corridor where he walked was cunningly removed. And when hefell ill the wrong potion was put in the glass by his bedside,and he died. How could the pretty young mother know that thisgrizzled interloper was the child of whom she was in search?

All our notions about ghosts are wrong. It is nothing so pettyas lost wills or deeds of violence that brings them back, and weare not nearly so afraid of them as they are of us.

One by one the lights of the street went out, but still a lampburned steadily in the little window across the way. I know nothow it happened, whether I had crossed first to him or he to me,but, after being for a long time as the echo of each other'ssteps, we were together now. I can have had no desire to deceivehim, but some reason was needed to account for my vigil, and Imay have said something that he misconstrued, for above my wordshe was always listening for other sounds. But however it cameabout he had conceived the idea that I was an outcast for areason similar to his own, and I let his mistake pass, it seemedto matter so little and to draw us together so naturally. Wetalked together of many things, such as worldly ambition. Forlong ambition has been like an ancient memory to me, someglorious day recalled from my springtime, so much a thing of thepast that I must make a railway journey to revisit it as to lookupon the pleasant fields in which that scene was laid. But hehad been ambitious yesterday.

I mentioned worldly ambition. "Good God!" he said with ashudder.

There was a clock hard by that struck the quarters, and oneo'clock passed and two. What time is it now? Twenty past two.And now? It is still twenty past two.

I asked him about his relatives, and neither he nor she had any."We have a friend--" he began and paused, and then rambled into anot very understandable story about a letter and a doll's houseand some unknown man who had bought one of his pictures, or wassupposed to have done so, in a curiously clandestine manner. Icould not quite follow the story.

"It is she who insists that it is always the same person," hesaid. "She thinks he will make himself known to me if anythinghappens to her." His voice suddenly went husky. "She told me,"he said, "if she died and I discovered him, to give him herlove."

At this we parted abruptly, as we did at intervals throughout thenight, to drift together again presently. He tried to tell me ofsome things she had asked him to do should she not get over this,but what they were I know not, for they engulfed him at the firststep. He would draw back from them as ill-omened things, andnext moment he was going over them to himself like a child atlessons. A child! In that short year she had made him entirelydependent on her. It is ever thus with women: their firstdeliberate act is to make their husband helpless. There are fewmen happily married who can knock in a nail.

But it was not of this that I was thinking. I was wishing I hadnot degenerated so much.

Well, as you know, the little nursery governess did not die. Ateighteen minutes to four we heard the rustle of David's wings. He boasts about it to this day, and has the hour to a syllable asif the first thing he ever did was to look at the clock.

An oldish gentleman had opened the door and waved congratulationsto my companion, who immediately butted at me, drove me against awall, hesitated for a second with his head down as if in doubtwhether to toss me, and then rushed away. I followed slowly. Ishook him by the hand, but by this time he was haw-haw-hawing soabominably that a disgust of him swelled up within me, and withit a passionate desire to jeer once more at Mary A--

"It is little she will care for you now," I said to the fellow;"I know the sort of woman; her intellectuals (which are all shehas to distinguish her from the brutes) are so imperfectlydeveloped that she will be a crazy thing about that boy for thenext three years. She has no longer occasion for you, my dearsir; you are like a picture painted out."

But I question whether he heard me. I returned to my home. Home! As if one alone can build a nest. How often as I haveascended the stairs that lead to my lonely, sumptuous rooms, haveI paused to listen to the hilarity of the servants below. Thatmorning I could not rest: I wandered from chamber to chamber,followed by my great dog, and all were alike empty and desolate. I had nearly finished a cigar when I thought I heard a pebblestrike the window, and looking out I saw David's father standingbeneath. I had told him that I lived in this street, and Isuppose my lights had guided him to my window.

"I could not lie down," he called up hoarsely, "until I heardyour news. Is it all right?"

For a moment I failed to understand him. Then I said sourly:"Yes, all is right."

"Both doing well?" he inquired.

"Both," I answered, and all the time I was trying to shut thewindow. It was undoubtedly a kindly impulse that had brought himout, but I was nevertheless in a passion with him.

"Boy or girl?" persisted the dodderer with ungentlemanlikecuriosity.

"Boy," I said, very furiously.

"Splendid," he called out, and I think he added something else,but by that time I had closed the window with a slam.