“No; I didn’t tell him I’d been on the stage. I hated the business and all that went with it; I’d cut it out for ever, and I didn’t see any use of stirring things up. I was a good girl, and I didn’t have anything to confess, except being an elocutionist, and that was about all the strain my conscience would stand.

“Oh, I tell you, Lynn, I was happy. I sang in the choir and attended the sewing society, and recited that ‘Annie Laurie’ thing with the whistling stunt in it, ‘in a manner bordering upon the professional,’ as the weekly village paper reported it. And Arthur and I went rowing, and walking in the woods, and clamming, and that poky little village seemed to me the best place in the world. I’d have been happy to live there always, too, if—

“But one morning old Mrs. Gurley, the widow lady, got gossipy while I was helping her string beans on the back porch, and began to gush information, as folks who rent out their rooms usually do. Mr. Lyle was her idea of a saint on earth—as he was mine, too. She went over all his virtues and graces, and wound up by telling me that Arthur had had an extremely romantic love-affair, not long before, that had ended unhappily. She didn’t seem to be on to the details, but she knew that he had been hit pretty hard. He was paler and thinner, she said, and he had some kind of a remembrance or keepsake of the lady in a little rosewood box that he kept locked in his desk drawer in his study.

“‘Several times,’ says she, ‘I’ve seen him gloomerin’ over that box of evenings, and he always locks it up right away if anybody comes into the room.’

“Well, you can imagine how long it was before I got Arthur by the wrist and led him down stage and hissed in his ear.

“That same afternoon we were lazying around in a boat among the water-lilies at the edge of the bay.

“‘Arthur,’ says I, ‘you never told me you’d had another love-affair. But Mrs. Gurley did,’ I went on, to let him know I knew. I hate to hear a man lie.

“‘Before you came,’ says he, looking me frankly in the eye, ‘there was a previous affection—a strong one. Since you know of it, I will be perfectly candid with you.’

“‘I am waiting,’ says I.

“‘My dear Ida,’ says Arthur—of course, I went by my real name while I was in Soundport—‘this former affection was a spiritual one, in fact. Although the lady aroused my deepest sentiments, and was, as I thought, my ideal woman, I never met her, and never spoke to her. It was an ideal love. My love for you, while no less ideal, is different. You wouldn’t let that come between us.”

“‘Was she pretty?’ I asked.

“‘She was very beautiful,’ said Arthur.

“‘Did you see her often?’ I asked.

“‘Something like a dozen times,’ says he.

“‘Always from a distance?’ says I.

“‘Always from quite a distance,’ says he.

“‘And you loved her?’ I asked.

“‘She seemed my ideal of beauty and grace—and soul,’ says Arthur.