At the
expiration of that time the symptoms of a serious illness first
declared themselves in Mrs. Arthur Holliday. It turned out to be
a long, lingering, hopeless malady. I attended her throughout. We
had been great friends when she was well, and we became more
attached to each other than ever when she was ill. I had many
long and interesting conversations with her in the intervals when
she suffered least. The result of one of those conversations I
may briefly relate, leaving you to draw any inferences from it
that you please.
The interview to which I refer occurred shortly before her death.
I called one evening as usual, and found her alone, with a look
in her eyes which told me she had been crying. She only informed
me at first that she had been depressed in spirits, but by little
and little she became more communicative, and confessed to me
that she had been looking over some old letters which had been
addressed to her, before she had seen Arthur, by a man to whom
she had been engaged to be married. I asked her how the
engagement came to be broken off. She replied that it had not
been broken off, but that it had died out in a very mysterious
way. The person to whom she was engaged--her first love, she
called him--was very poor, and there was no immediate prospect of
their being married.
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