And, leaving Paul vaguely encouraged by her confidence, she went to find Ida.
She came upon her in the sitting-room, intently pondering the picture above the fireplace.
"I want to tell you a love story, my sister," she said.
"Whose love story?" asked Ida.
"Your own."
"But I never had a love story or a lover. Nobody can possibly know that better than you do."
"I will show you that you are mistaken," said Miss Ludington, smiling. "No one ever had so fond or faithful a lover as yours. Sit down and I will tell you your own love story, for the strangest thing of all is that you do not know it yet."
Beginning with Paul's baby fondness for her picture, she related to Ida the whole story of his love for her, which had grown with his growth, and, from a boyish sentiment, become the ruling passion of the man, blinding him to the charms of living women, and making him a monk for her sake.
She described the effect upon him of the first suggestion that it might be possible to communicate with her spirit, and how her presence on earth was due to the enthusiasm with which he had insisted upon making the attempt.
Then she asked Ida to imagine what must be the anguish of such a lover on finding that she did not know him—that he was nothing more than a stranger to her. She told her how, in his desperation, he had appealed to her to plead his case and to relate his story, that his mistress might at least know his love, though she might not be able to return it.