A MAN who passes his evening as I had passed mine, may go to bedafterward if he has nothing better to do. But he must not rankamong the number of his reasonable anticipations the expectationof getting a night's rest. The morning was well advanced, and thehotel was astir, before I at last closed my eyes in slumber. WhenI awoke, my watch informed me that it was close on noon.

I rang the bell. My servant appeared with a letter in his hand.It had been left for me, three hours since, by a lady who haddriven to the hotel door in a carriage, and had then driven awayagain. The man had found me sleeping when he entered mybed-chamber, and, having received no orders to wake me overnight,had left the letter on the sitting-room table until he heard mybell.

Easily guessing who my correspondent was, I opened the letter. Aninclosure fell out of it--to which, for the moment, I paid noattention. I turned eagerly to the first lines. They announcedthat the writer had escaped me for the second time: early thatmorning she had left Edinburgh. The paper inclosed proved to bemy letter of introduction to the dressmaker returned to me.

I was more than angry with her--I felt her second flight from meas a downright outrage. In five minutes I had hurried on myclothes and was on my way to the inn in the Canongate as fast asa horse could draw me.

The servants could give me no information. Her escape had beeneffected without their knowledge.

The landlady, to whom I next addressed myself, deliberatelydeclined to assist me in any way whatever.

"I have given the lady my promise," said this obstinate person,"to answer not one word to any question that you may ask me abouther. In my belief, she is acting as becomes an honest woman inremoving herself from any further communication with you. I sawyou through the keyhole last night, sir. I wish yougood-morning."

Returning to my hotel, I left no attempt to discover her untried.I traced the coachman who had driven her. He had set her down ata shop, and had then been dismissed. I questioned theshop-keeper. He remembered that he had sold some articles oflinen to a lady with her veil down and a traveling-bag in herhand, and he remembered no more. I circulated a description ofher in the different coach offices. Three "elegant young ladies,with their veils down, and with traveling-bags in their hands,"answered to the description; and which of the three was thefugitive of whom I was in search, it was impossible to discover.In the days of railways and electric telegraphs I might havesucceeded in tracing her. In the days of which I am now writing,she set investigation at defiance.

I read and reread her letter, on the chance that some slip of thepen might furnish the clew which I had failed to find in anyother way. Here is the narrative that she addressed to me, copiedfrom the original, word for word:

"DEAR SIR--Forgive me for leaving you again as I left you inPerthshire. After what took place last night, I have no otherchoice (knowing my own weakness, and the influence that you seemto have over me) than to thank you gratefully for your kindness,and to bid you farewell. My sad position must be my excuse forseparating myself from you in this rude manner, and for venturingto send you back your letter of introduction. If I use theletter, I only offer you a means of communicating with me. Foryour sake, as well as for mine, this mu st not be. I must nevergive you a second opportunity of saying that you love me; I mustgo away, leaving no trace behind by which you can possiblydiscover me.

"But I cannot forget that I owe my poor life to your compassionand your courage. You, who saved me, have a right to know whatthe provocation was that drove me to drowning myself, and what mysituation is, now that I am (thanks to you) still a living woman.You shall hear my sad story, sir; and I will try to tell it asbriefly as possible.

"I was married, not very long since, to a Dutch gentleman, whosename is Van Brandt. Please excuse my entering into familyparticulars. I have endeavored to write and tell you about mydear lost father and my old home. But the tears come into my eyeswhen I think of my happy past life. I really cannot see the linesas I try to write them.

"Let me, then, only say that Mr. Van Brandt was well recommendedto my good father before I married. I have only now discoveredthat he obtained these recommendations from his friends under afalse pretense, which it is needless to trouble you by mentioningin detail. Ignorant of what he had done, I lived with himhappily. I cannot truly declare that he was the object of myfirst love, but he was the one person in the world whom I had tolook up to after my father's death. I esteemed him and respectedhim, and, if I may say so without vanity, I did indeed make him agood wife.

"So the time went on, sir, prosperously enough, until the eveningcame when you and I met on the bridge.

"I was out alone in our garden, trimming the shrubs, when themaid-servant came and told me there was a foreign lady in acarriage at the door who desired to say a word to Mrs. VanBrandt. I sent the maid on before to show her into thesitting-room, and I followed to receive my visitor as soon as Ihad made myself tidy. She was a dreadful woman, with a flushed,fiery face and impudent, bright eyes. 'Are you Mrs. Van Brandt?'she said. I answered, 'Yes.' 'Are you really married to him?' sheasked me. That question (naturally enough, I think) upset mytemper. I said, 'How dare you doubt it?' She laughed in my face.'Send for Van Brandt,' she said. I went out into the passage andcalled him down from the room upstairs in which he was writing.'Ernest,' I said, 'here is a person who has insulted me. Comedown directly.' He left his room the moment he heard me. Thewoman followed me out into the passage to meet him. She made hima low courtesy. He turned deadly pale the moment he set eyes onher. That frightened me. I said to him, 'For God's sake, whatdoes this mean?' He took me by the arm, and he answered: 'Youshall know soon. Go back to your gardening, and don't return tothe house till I send for you.' His looks were so shocking, hewas so unlike himself, that I declare he daunted me. I let himtake me as far as the garden door. He squeezed my hand. 'For mysake, darling,' he whispered, 'do what I ask of you.' I went intothe garden and sat me down on the nearest bench, and waitedimpatiently for what was to come.

"How long a time passed I don't know. My anxiety got to such apitch at last that I could bear it no longer. I ventured back tothe house.

"I listened in the passage, and heard nothing. I went close tothe parlor door, and still there was silence. I took courage, andopened the door.

"The room was empty. There was a letter on the table. It was inmy husband's handwriting, and it was addressed to me. I opened itand read it. The letter told me that I was deserted, disgraced,ruined. The woman with the fiery face and the impudent eyes wasVan Brandt's lawful wife. She had given him his choice of goingaway with her at once or of being prosecuted for bigamy. He hadgone away with her--gone, and left me.

"Remember, sir, that I had lost both father and mother. I had nofriends. I was alone in the world, without a creature near tocomfort or advise me. And please to bear in mind that I have atemper which feels even the smallest slights and injuries verykeenly. Do you wonder at what I had it in my thoughts to do thatevening on the bridge?

"Mind this: I believe I should never have attempted to destroymyself if I could only have burst out crying. No tears came tome. A dull, stunned feeling took hold like a vise on my head andon my heart. I walked straight to the river. I said to myself,quite calmly, as I went along, '_There_ is the end of it, and thesooner the better.'

"What happened after that, you know as well as I do. I may get onto the next morning--the morning when I so ungratefully left youat the inn by the river-side.

"I had but one reason, sir, for going away by the firstconveyance that I could find to take me, and this was the fearthat Van Brandt might discover me if I remained in Perthshire.The letter that he had left on the table was full of expressionsof love and remorse, to say nothing of excuses for his infamousbehavior to me. He declared that he had been entrapped into aprivate marriage with a profligate woman when he was little morethan a lad. They had long since separated by common consent. Whenhe first courted me, he had every reason to believe that she wasdead. How he had been deceived in this particular, and how shehad discovered that he had married me, he had yet to find out.Knowing her furious temper, he had gone away with her, as the onemeans of preventing an application to the justices and a scandalin the neighborhood. In a day or two he would purchase hisrelease from her by an addition to the allowance which she hadalready received from him: he would return to me and take meabroad, out of the way of further annoyance. I was his wife inthe sight of Heaven; I was the only woman he had ever loved; andso on, and so on.

"Do you now see, sir, the risk that I ran of his discovering meif I remained in your neighborhood? The bare thought of it mademy flesh creep. I was determined never again to see the man whohad so cruelly deceived me. I am in the same mind still--withthis difference, that I might consent to see him, if I could bepositively assured first of the death of his wife. That is notlikely to happen. Let me get on with my letter, and tell you whatI did on my arrival in Edinburgh.

"The coachman recommended me to the house in the Canongate whereyou found me lodging. I wrote the same day to relatives of myfather, living in Glasgow, to tell them where I was, and in whata forlorn position I found myself.

"I was answered by return of post. The head of the family and hiswife requested me to refrain from visiting them in Glasgow. Theyhad business then in hand which would take them to Edinburgh, andI might expect to see them both with the least possible delay.

"They arrived, as they had promised, and they expressedthemselves civilly enough. Moreover, they did certainly lend me asmall sum of money when they found how poorly my purse wasfurnished. But I don't think either husband or wife felt much forme. They recommended me, at parting, to apply to my father'sother relatives, living in England. I may be doing them aninjustice, but I fancy they were eager to get me (as the commonphrase is) off their hands.

"The day when the departure of my relatives left me friendlesswas also the day, sir, when I had that dream or vision of youwhich I have already related. I lingered on at the house in theCanongate, partly because the landlady was kind to me, partlybecause I was so depressed by my position that I really did notknow what to do next.

"In this wretched condition you discovered me on that favoritewalk of mine from Holyrood to Saint Anthony's Well. Believe me,your kind interest in my fortunes has not been thrown away on anungrateful woman. I could ask Providence for no greater blessingthan to find a brother and a friend in you. You have yourselfdestroyed that hope by what you said and did when we weretogether in the parlor. I don't blame you: I am afraid my manner(without my knowing it) might have seemed to give you someencouragement. I am only sorry--very, very sorry--to have nohonorable choice left but never to see you again.

"After much thin king, I have made up my mind to speak to thoseother relatives of my father to whom I have not yet applied. Thechance that they may help me to earn an honest living is the onechance that I have left. God bless you, Mr. Germaine! I wish youprosperity and happiness from the bottom of my heart; and remain,your grateful servant,

"M. VAN BRANDT.

"P.S.--I sign my own name (or the name which I once thought wasmine) as a proof that I have honestly written the truth aboutmyself, from first to last. For the future I must, for safety'ssake, live under some other name. I should like to go back to myname when I was a happy girl at home. But Van Brandt knows it;and, besides, I have (no matter how innocently) disgraced it.Good-by again, sir; and thank you again."

So the letter concluded.

I read it in the temper of a thoroughly disappointed andthoroughly unreasonable man. Whatever poor Mrs. Van Brandt haddone, she had done wrong. It was wrong of her, in the firstplace, to have married at all. It was wrong of her to contemplatereceiving Mr. Van Brandt again, even if his lawful wife had diedin the interval. It was wrong of her to return my letter ofintroduction, after I had given myself the trouble of altering itto suit her capricious fancy. It was wrong of her to take anabsurdly prudish view of a stolen kiss and a tender declaration,and to fly from me as if I were as great a scoundrel as Mr. VanBrandt himself. And last, and more than all, it was wrong of herto sign her Christian name in initial only. Here I was,passionately in love with a woman, and not knowing by what fondname to identify her in my thoughts! "M. Van Brandt!" I mightcall her Maria, Margaret, Martha, Mabel, Magdalen, Mary--no, notMary. The old boyish love was dead and gone, but I owed somerespect to the memory of it. If the "Mary" of my early days werestill living, and if I had met her, would she have treated me asthis woman had treated me? Never! It was an injury to "Mary" tothink even of that heartless creature by her name. Why think ofher at all? Why degrade myself by trying to puzzle out a means oftracing her in her letter? It was sheer folly to attempt to tracea woman who had gone I knew not whither, and who herself informedme that she meant to pass under an assumed name. Had I lost allpride, all self-respect? In the flower of my age, with a handsomefortune, with the world before me, full of interesting femalefaces and charming female figures, what course did it become meto take? To go back to my country-house, and mope over the lossof a woman who had deliberately deserted me? or to send for acourier and a traveling carriage, and forget her gayly amongforeign people and foreign scenes? In the state of my temper atthat moment, the idea of a pleasure tour in Europe fired myimagination. I first astonished the people at the hotel byordering all further inquiries after the missing Mrs. Van Brandtto be stopped; and then I opened my writing desk and wrote totell my mother frankly and fully of my new plans.

The answer arrived by return of post.

To my surprise and delight, my good mother was not satisfied withonly formally approving of my new resolution. With an energywhich I had not ventured to expect from her, she had made all herarrangements for leaving home, and had started for Edinburgh tojoin me as my traveling companion. "You shall not go away alone,George," she wrote, "while I have strength and spirits to keepyou company."

In three days from the time when I read those words ourpreparations were completed, and we were on our way to theContinent.