loss good. It was as if from her eyes Edith Bartlett looked into mine, and
smiled consolation to me. My fate was not alone the strangest, but the most
fortunate that ever befell a man. A double miracle had been wrought for me. I
had not been stranded upon the shore of this strange world to find myself alone
and companionless. My love, whom I had dreamed lost, had been reëmbodied for my
consolation. When at last, in an ecstasy of gratitude and tenderness, I folded
the lovely girl in my arms, the two Ediths were blended in my thought, nor have
they ever since been clearly distinguished. I was not long in finding that on
Edith's part there was a corresponding confusion of identities. Never, surely,
was there between freshly united lovers a stranger talk than ours that
afternoon. She seemed more anxious to have me speak of Edith Bartlett than of
herself, of how I had loved her than how I loved herself, rewarding my fond
words concerning another woman with tears and tender smiles and pressures of the
hand.
    »You must not love me too much for myself,« she said. »I shall be very
jealous for her. I shall not let you forget her. I am going to tell you
something which you may think strange. Do you not believe that spirits sometimes
come back to the world to fulfill some work that lay near their hearts? What if
I were to tell you that I have sometimes thought that her spirit lives in me, -
that Edith Bartlett, not Edith Leete, is my real name. I cannot know it; of
course none of us can know who we really are; but I can feel it. Can you wonder
that I have such a feeling, seeing how my life was affected by her and by you,
even before you came. So you see you need not trouble to love me at all, if only
you are true to her. I shall not be likely to be jealous.«
    Dr. Leete had gone out that afternoon, and I did not have an interview with
him till later. He was not, apparently, wholly unprepared for the intelligence I
conveyed, and shook my hand heartily.
    »Under any ordinary circumstances, Mr. West, I should say that this step had
been taken on rather short acquaintance; but these are decidedly not ordinary
circumstances. In fairness, perhaps I ought to tell you,« he added, smilingly,
»that while I cheerfully consent to the proposed arrangement, you must not feel
too much indebted to me, as I judge