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Now was my opportunity. After a little hesitation, I rose, and planted myself abruptly on the vacant seat before the woman.

“Mary,” I said.

She started, with a little exclamation of alarm, and dropped the paper she had held. She knew me at once.

“Master John!” she exclaimed, using the familiar term still given me when I was long past boyhood; and then, after a lengthened gaze, she turned away her head. I was embarrassed at first how to address her.

“Mary,” I said at last, “I am grieved to see you thus.”

“Why should you be grieved for me?” she retorted, looking at me sharply, and speaking in a tone of impatient anger. “I am happy as I am.”

“I don’t believe you,” I replied.

She again turned away her head.

“Mary,” I pursued, “can you doubt, that, spite of all, I have still a strong interest in the companion of my youth?”

She looked at me almost mournfully, but did not speak. At that moment I probably grew pale; for suddenly that chilly fit seized me again, and my forehead became clammy. That voice sounded again in my ear: “Speak of him!” were the words it uttered. Mary gazed on me with surprise, and yet I was assured that she had not heard that voice, so plain to me. She evidently mistook the nature of my visible emotion.

“O Master John!” she stammered, with tears gathering in her eyes, reverting again to that name of bygone times, “if you had loved me then–if you had consoled my true affection with one word of hope, one look of loving-kindness–if you had not spurned and crushed me, I should not have been what I am now.”

I was about to make some answer to this burst of unforgotten passion, when the voice came again: “Speak of him!”

“You have loved others since,” I remarked, with a coldness which seemed cruel to myself. “You love him now.” And I nodded my head toward the door by which the man had disappeared.

“Do I?” she said, with a bitter smile. “Perhaps; who knows?”

“And yet no good can come to you from a connection with that man,” I pursued.

“Why not? He adores me, and he is free,” was her answer, given with a little triumphant air.

“Yes,” I said, “I know he is free: he has lately lost his wife. He has made good his claim to the sum for which he insured her life.”

Mary grew deadly pale. “How did you learn this? what do you know of him?” she stammered.

I had no reply to give. She scanned my face anxiously for some time; then in a low voice she added, “What do you suspect?”

I was still silent, and only looked at her fixedly.

“You do not speak,” she pursued nervously. “Why do you not speak? Ah, you know more than you would say! Master John, Master John, you might set my tortured mind at rest, and clear or confirm those doubts which will come into my poor head, spite of myself. Speak out–O, do speak out!”

“Not here; it is impossible,” I replied, looking around. The room as the hour advanced, was becoming more thronged with guests, and the full tables gave a pretext for my reticence, when in truth I had nothing to say.

“Will you come and see me–will you?” she asked with earnest entreaty.

I nodded my head.

“Have you a pocketbook? I will write you my address; and you will come–yes, I am sure you will come!” she said in an agitated way.

I handed her my pocketbook and pencil; she wrote rapidly.

“Between the hours of three and five,” she whispered, looking uneasily at the door; “he is sure not to be at home.”

I rose; Mary held out her hand to me, then withdrew it hastily with an air of shame, and the tears sprang into her eyes again. I left the room hurriedly, and met her companion on the stairs.

That same evening, in the solitude of my own room, I pondered over the little event of the day. I had calmed down from my state of excitement. The living apparition of Mary Simms occupied my mind almost to the exclusion of the terrors of the ghostly voice which had haunted me, and my own fears of coming insanity. In truth, what was that man to me? Nothing. What did his doings matter to such a perfect stranger as myself? Nothing. His connection with Mary Simms was our only link; and in what should that affect me? Nothing again. I debated with myself whether it were not foolish of me to comply with my youthful companion’s request to visit her; whether it were not imprudent in me to take any further interest in the lost woman; whether there were not even danger in seeking to penetrate mysteries which were no concern of mine. The resolution to which I came pleased me, and I said aloud, “No, I will not go!”