Brandt is the namesake of your first love. If you are so fond of
her, why don't you call her Mary?"

I was ashamed to give the true reason--it seemed so utterly
unworthy of a man of any sense or spirit. Noticing my hesitation,
she insisted on my answering her; she forced me to make my
humiliating confession.

"The man who has parted us," I said, "called her Mary. I hate him
with such a jealous hatred that he has even disgusted me with the
name! It lost all its charm for me when it passed _his_ lips."

I had anticipated that she would laugh at me. No! She suddenly
raised her head as if she were looking at me intently in the
dark.

"How fond you must be of that woman!" she said. "Do you dream of
her now?"

"I never dream of her now."

"Do you expect to see the apparition of her again?"

"It may be so--if a time comes when she is in sore need of help,
and when she has no friend to look to but me."

"Did you ever see the apparition of your little Mary?"

"Never!"

"But you used once to see her--as Dame Dermody predicted--in
dreams?"

"Yes--when I was a lad."

"And, in the after-time, it was not Mary, but Mrs. Van Brandt who
came to you in dreams--who appeared to you in the spirit, when
she was far away from you in the body? Poor old Dame Dermody. She
little thought, in her life-time, that her prediction would be
fullfilled by the wrong woman!"

To that result her inquiries had inscrutably conducted her! If
she had only pressed them a little further--if she had not
unconsciously led me astray again by the very next question that
fell from her lips--she _must_ have communicated to _my_ mind the
idea obscurely germinating in hers--the idea of a possible
identity between the Mary of my first love and Mrs. Van Brandt!

"Tell me," she went on. "If you met with your little Mary now,
what would she be like? What sort of woman would you expect to
see?"

I could hardly help laughing. "How can I tell," I rejoined, "at
this distance of time?"

"Try!" she said.

Reasoning my way from the known personality to the unknown, I
searched my memory for the image of the frail and delicate child
of my remembrance: and I drew the picture of a frail and delicate
woman--the most absolute contrast imaginable to Mrs. Van Brandt!

The half-realized idea of identity in the mind of Miss Dunross
dropped out of it instantly, expelled by the substantial
conclusion which the contrast implied. Alike ignorant of the
aftergrowth of health, strength, and beauty which time and
circumstances had developed in the Mary of my youthful days, we
had alike completely and unconsciously misled one another. Once
more, I had missed the discovery of the truth, and missed it by a
hair-breadth!

"I infinitely prefer your portrait of Mary," said Miss Dunross,
"to your portrait of Mrs. Van Brandt. Mary realizes my idea of
what a really attractive woman ought to be. How you can have felt
any sorrow for the loss of that other person (I detest buxom
women!) passes my understanding. I can't tell you how interested
I am in Mary! I want to know more about her. Where is that pretty
present of needle-work which the poor little thing embroidered
for you so industriously? Do let me see the green flag!"

She evidently supposed that I carried the green flag about me! I
felt a little confused as I answered her.

"I am sorry to disappoint you. The green flag is somewhere in my
house in Perthshire."

"You have not got it with you?" she exclaimed. "You leave her
keepsake lying about anywhere? Oh, Mr. Germaine, you have indeed
forgotten Mary! A woman, in your place, would have parted with
her life rather than part with the one memorial left of the time
when she first loved!"

She spoke with such extraordinary earnestness--with such
agitation, I might almost say--that she quite startled me.

"Dear Miss Dunross," I remonstrated, "the flag is not lost."

"I should hope not!" she interposed, quickly. "If you lose the
green flag, you lose the last relic of Mary--and more than that,
if _my_ belief is right."


<< previous page | next page >>

Jump to page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85 | 86 | 87 | 88 | 89 | 90 | 91 | 92 | 93 | 94 | 95 | 96 | 97 | 98 | 99 | 100 | 101 | 102 | 103 |