fair fame here in the latter you lose it this marriage has to be in either case by the first mr escapes free by the second he suffers with me said quietly that i know and am prepared for was s answer and companionship in misfortune is pleasant she returned if you are really set on this absurd bit of you shall smart for it mon i am not disposed to be made the and sent into the wilderness carrying your sins as well as my own we will go together i am ready said sternly to give up to give up that i may save t the ghost of the past she laughed in a mocking kind of way yon were not such a lover to me she said i do not think you would have given up me for any such high morality at least i know that mr � my husband then � and the seventh did not you i did not give you up till i knew you said while i believed in you i would have gone down into hell for you to have died for you would have been easy and i for you she said suddenly changing her tone for i loved you � loved you faithfully � loved you as i never loved before nor have since i had to deceive you bad as i was how could i tell my sad story to a man so young as you were then with all your illusions unbroken it would have killed you i loved you my darling and you loved me will not the memory of that love soften you i want only the opportunity to be good i am i the ghost of the past not bad at heart � i never was i have been the victim of a cruel fate and the sport of circumstances but i was never really vicious help me to redeem myself and to make s life blessed as i can and will make it he will never know i will be so good to him help me for old times sake she spoke with inconceivable passion her words flowed like a stream of fiery and as she uttered her last appeal she knelt on the sands at his feet and took his hand in both of hers carrying it to her lips lovely in her passion graceful in her with the eloquence of despair in her voice and manner with the wonderful of her nature shining in her eyes and drawing out the very heart of her she was at this moment as dangerous to s resolve as she had formerly been to his soul her appeal was one which touches every true man to help her to be good � to help her to the ghost of the past redeem herself � to lift her from the mire where as she said a cruel fate h d cast her and where he himself had helped to fling her and set her among the shining ranks of the if he would not if for the shadowy of he failed to do the real good laid before him to do genuine tears came into her eyes her painted lips quivered with a genuine emotion put his hand over his eyes he was trembling like a leaf for the task was very hard it cannot be he said with a sob for her sake and his i must not a boat drifted noiselessly round the and and sprang on shore god in heaven what does this mean cried dashing up the beach to seize by the throat stood where she was and as if in a dream i the of the past started to her feet she read her doom in s face now and as if in stone and she knew that the game was lost i was an old play with my former lover she said in her hard harsh voice � the man who me when i was s wife tears had passed since this bolt fell from the blue and shattered the lives of all concerned how often the summer had faded into the autumn and the autumn had died into winter since then and what had wrought out their course to the end � s lifeless body cast up by the tide how drowned whether by accident or design no one ever knew � the beautiful woman by whom had been wrought all this woe dead of misery and want like so much drift wood on the ghost of the past the shores of time and disease � and her mother like dim of their former selves wandering through the world banished like adam from the paradise where he had lived with love and walked with � all the roses dead all the sunlight gone � what a term of � what a blank life was to the three remaining the two who had found their rest in the grave were happier than those who still lived beneath the sky sorrow shame futile despair and as futile repentance � what an of that bitter harvest of youthful folly ought i to have him said often to herself but never asked his heart ought i to have concealed it cost all it had it was better than a life of deception the white washing of and the association of and with the wife of � the widow of the of san i the ghost of the past long parted they met again one winter moonlight night in the at rome this place of death and ruin filled with the memories of love joy glory and all buried deep in the past it was the fitting place for them to meet and it was the fitting time � night for day winter for summer the pale moon which threw black fantastic shadows on a ruin for the glorious sun which had touched all 