'Lynn, if you'd take John Drew in his best draw- ing-room scene and compare the two, you'd have John arrested for disturbing the peace.
'I'll spare you the particulars; but in less than a month Arthur and I were engaged. He preached at a little one-night stand of a Methodist church. There was to be a parsonage the size of a lunch-wagon, and hens and honeysuckles when we were married. Ar- thur used to preach to me a good deal about Heaven, but be never could get my mind quite off those honey- suckles and hens.
'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 forever, and I didn't see any use of stirring things up. I was a good girl, and I didn't have any- thing 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 re- cited that 'Annie Laurie' thing with the whistling stunt in it, 'in a manner bordering upon the profes- sional,' 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 exremely 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 bear 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. Al- though 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.
''And this keepsake that you keep under lock and key, and moon over at times, is that a remembrance from her?'
''A memento,' says Arthur, 'that I have treasured.'
''Did she send it to you?'
''It came to me from her' says be.
''In a roundabout way?' I asked.
''Somewhat roundabout,' says he, 'and yet rather direct.'
''Why didn't you ever meet her?' I asked. 'Were your positions in life so different?'
'She was far above me,' says Arthur. 'Now, Ida,' he goes on, 'this is all of the past. You're not going to be jealous, are you?'
'Jealous!' says I. 'Why, man, what are you talking about? It makes me think ten times as much of you as I did before I knew about it.'
'And it did, Lynn - if you can understand it. That ideal love was a new one on me, but it struck me as being the most beautiful and glorious thing I'd ever heard of. Think of a man loving a woman he'd never even spoken to, and being faithful just to what his mind and heart pictured her! Oh, it sounded great to me. The men I'd always known come at you with either diamonds, knock-out-drops or a raise of salary, -- and their ideals! -- well, we'll say no more.'
'Yes, it made me think more of Arthur than I did before. I couldn't be jealous of that far-away divin- ity that he used to worship, for I was going to have him myself. And I began to look upon him as a saint on earth, just as old lady Gurley did.
'About four o'clock this afternoon a man came to the house for Arthur to go and see somebody that was sick among his church bunch. Old lady Gurley was taking her afternoon snore on a couch, so that left me pretty much alone.
'In passing by Arthur's study I looked in, and saw his bunch of keys hanging in the drawer of his desk,
