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“I am very sorry, indeed, that I cannot tell you,” I answered.

“It would be a queer case, anyway,” Mrs. Colesworthy continued. “Mr. Kilbright has had a wife, but he never was a widower. Now, having been married, and never having been a widower, it would seem as if he ought not to marry again. But his first wife is dead now, there can be no doubt about that.”

It was not long before there was no further need for suppositions in regard to this matter, for Mr. Kilbright came to us and announced that he had determined to offer himself in marriage to Miss Budworth.

“I think it is meet and proper,” he said, “that I should wed and take that position at the head of a family which a right-minded and respectable man of my age should fill. I reasoned thus when for the first time I took upon me this pleasing duty, and these reasons have now the self-same weight as then. I have been studying the surveying methods of the present day, and I believe I could re-establish myself in my former profession. Thus could I maintain a wife, if, happily, I get her.”

“Get her!” exclaimed Mrs. Colesworthy, “of course you will get her! She can’t help accepting you.”

“I should feel the more hope, madam,” said Mr. Kilbright, “were it not requisite that she be informed of all that has happened to me. And all this must she know before I require her to make answer to me.”

“I must admit,” I said, “that I am afraid you are going to have a tough job.”

“I don’t believe it!” warmly exclaimed my wife. “Lilian Budworth is a girl of good, solid sense, and when she knows just exactly what has happened, it is my opinion she will not object a bit.”

“Madam,” said Mr. Kilbright, “you greatly embolden me, and I shall speak to Miss Budworth this very day.”

Notwithstanding my wife’s confidence in Miss Lilian’s good sense, she was as much surprised as I when, the next morning, Mr. Kilbright informed us that he had been accepted. As it was yet an hour before the library would open, she hurried around to Miss Budworth’s home to know all about it.

The young lady was found, pale, but very happy. “When he left me last night,” she said, “my mind was in a strange hubbub. He had told me that he loved me, and had asked me to marry him, and my heart would not let me say anything but ‘yes;’ and yet, after he had gone, his wondrous story came up before me as it had not come when he told it, having just told something else. I did not sleep all night, thinking of it. I have read and pondered a great deal upon these subjects, but have never been able to make up my mind whether or not to put faith in the strange spiritual manifestations of which we are told. So I determined, a good while ago, not to consider the matter at all. I could do nothing with it, and it would be better that I should let it alone. To this same determination I came early this morning in the case of Mr. Kilbright. None of us know what we may once have been, nor what we may become. All we know is what we are. Mr. Kilbright may be mistaken as to what he was, but I know what he is. And to that man I give myself as I am. I am perfectly satisfied with the present.”

Mrs. Colesworthy enfolded her in an approbatory embrace, and hurried home to tell me about it. “There now!” she exclaimed, “didn’t I say that Lilian Budworth was a girl of good, sound common-sense?”

“That is what you said,” I answered, “but I must admit that I was afraid her common-sense would interfere with her acceptance of his story. We had outside evidence in regard to it, but she had only his simple statement.”