"Ah, it is nice of you to remember me," he answered. "I see you every day—often," she answered.
"Of course, we are neighbours," he responded. "The man—the horse- trainer—is quite well again?"
"He has gone home almost well," she answered. She placed pens, paper, and ink before him. "Will these do?"
"Perfectly," he answered mechanically, and laid a few pens and a bottle of ink beside the paper.
"You were very brave that day," he said—they had not talked together since, though seeing each other so often.
"Oh, no; I knew he would make friends with me—the hound."
"Of course," he rejoined.
"We should show animals that we trust them," she said, in some confusion, for being near him made her heart throb painfully.
He did not answer. Presently his eye glanced at the paper again, and was arrested. He ran his fingers over it, and a curious look flashed across his face. He held the paper up to the light quickly, and looked through it. It was thin, half-foreign paper, without lines, and there was a water-mark in it-large, shadowy, filmy—Kathleen.
It was paper made in the mills which had belonged to Kathleen's uncle. This water-mark was made to celebrate their marriage-day. Only for one year had this paper been made, and then the trade in it was stopped. It had gone its ways down the channels of commerce, and here it was in his hand, a reminder, not only of the old life, but, as it were, the parchment for the new. There it was, a piece of plain good paper, ready for pen and ink and his letter to the Cure's brother in Paris—the only letter he would ever write, ever again until he died, so he told himself; but hold it up to the light and there was the name over which his letter must be written—Kathleen, invisible but permanent, obscured, but brought to life by the raising of a hand.