Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/212

 think self-love could thus claim him, even for a moment. Perhaps all was not well with him. There had been a persistent minor note in his recent letters, bravely as he had tried to stifle it. Last week's roses, almost withered now, looked sadly up at her as she entered her apartment. She had kept the flowers, of late, until the next box came to replace them. To-night, as she watered the grateful roses, her imagination saw in their droop and languor the mute symbol of the passing from her life of something of whose full sweetness she was just beginning to be conscious.

The days went on, and brought no sign from the Shadow. They all seemed alike to the young reporter, who kept her sad reflections in her own heart and gave no outward sign. She felt her friend drifting from her, perhaps through a misapprehension which she had no power to correct. It was as much beyond her to reach or affect him as if he lived in truth in another world which he had shared with her, but from which she was now shut out. She missed his flowers, she missed his letters; above all, she missed