Page:Greatest Short Stories (1915).djvu/133

Rh lore she has learned from me, and then, Pygmalion-like, grow fond of the images she has herself endowed with semblance of divinity, until they seem to breathe back the mystery the soul can truly catch from only one.

“How anxious she will be lest the coroner shall have discovered any of her notes in my pocket!

“I felt chilly as this last reflection crossed my mind, partly at thought of the coroner, partly at the idea of Mary being unwillingly compelled to wear mourning for me, in case of such a disclosure of our engagement. It is a provoking thing for a girl of nineteen to have to go into mourning for a deceased lover at the beginning of her second winter in the metropolis.

“The water, though, with my motionless position, must have had something to do with my chilliness. I see, sir, you think that I tell my story with great levity; but indeed, indeed I should grow delirious did I venture to hold steadily to the awfulness of my feelings the greater part of that night. I think, indeed, I must have been most of the time hysterical with horror, for the vibrating emotions I have recapitulated did pass through my brain even as I have detailed them.

“But as I now became calm in thought, I summoned up again some resolution of action.

“I will begin at that comer (said I), and swim around the whole inclosure. I will swim slowly 180