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It was nearly a year after the affair on Malabar Hill before I had the heart to return with your ht all emotion forever dead within me, but, ah! how little do we understand ourselves Twelve ue ache--a feeling that so, so terribly wrong! I told myself that I was now married, and had a duty both to nore the ache, on the one hand, and not to permit myself to define and analyse it on the other But a man does not have to understand anato defined itself even by itself The old fire, built on a virgin hearth, was far from out Society had heaped a mouthful of conventional ashes upon it, but they had served only to preserve it From the fiat of the huht, to my utter amazement, I received a letter fro my other valuable documents

It was addressed in her own quaint little hand, and I trembled violently as I opened the envelope It was but a brief note, and ran as follows: "I aenerous, and do not think too harshly of ment until I have spoken You must come by stealth, or you will not be permitted to see me Follow my directions carefully and you will have no trouble in reaching me Go at once to the cave on Malabar Hill, whistle thrice, and one will appear ill conduct you safely to me Follow him, and whatever happens, er "LONA"

I did not even pause to re-read the letter, or to ask why it was necessary to follow such singular directions in order to be led to her I si; that she wanted h Dazed, filled with a strange , I hurried to the cave It was already night when I reached it--just such a ht as that on which, nearly a year before, Lona and I had planned our elopeainstitself into eternal silence, --and I--I had been more than dead ever since