Christine congratulated herself over her good luck at the very threshold of the new world.  “Strange romance, indeed, it would be,” she mused to herself, “if, after having refused the poor artist, he having gained riches should prove loyal, and lay his heart and fortune at my feet!  Would I reject him?  No, indeed!  He has gold now.”  Thus musing to herself before the mirror, she gave final touches to her toilet, and stepped down into her sister’s sumptuous parlor to wait for a lover, restored from the depths of the sea.

Promptly at 9 o’clock Alfonso was ushered into Fredrika’s parlor.  For a second, Christine stood fixed and pale, for Alfonso it really was, and she had believed him dead; then extending her hand she gave him greeting.  For a full hour Alfonso and Christine talked, each telling much of what had transpired in the intervening years.  Alfonso said he was quite as much surprised to find that she was still unmarried, as she seemed surprised that he was still alive.

“Alfonso, I have waited long for you,” Christine replied.

“Ah, yes, Christine, but have you been true all these years?”

As Alfonso spoke these words, he sat with Christine’s hand in his own, looking inquiringly into her blue eyes for her answer.  Her face flushed and she was speechless.

Alfonso, dropping her hand, said in a kindly voice, “For years I have kept pure and sought to be worthy of you, and fortune has smiled upon me; I could now match gold with gold, but when I demand purity for purity your silence and your blushes condemn you, and I must bid you a final farewell.”

Christine could not answer, and as Alfonso left the house, she fell weeping upon the sofa, where her sister Fredrika found her, long past midnight.  The terrible sorrow of that evening remained forever a mystery to Fredrika.

It was 10 o’clock next morning when the marquis called upon Alfonso Harris at the Hotel Holland.  He found him busy answering important letters from the coast.  The marquis was not long in detecting that Alfonso lacked his usual buoyancy of spirits, and so rightly concluded that the meeting with Christine the night before had resulted unfavorably.

Alfonso explained all that transpired, and the two artists, who had flattered themselves that they knew women well, admitted to each other their keen disappointment in Christine’s character.  Both lighted cigars, and for a moment or two unconsciously smoked vigorously, as if still in doubt as to their unsatisfactory conclusions.

Soon Alfonso said, “Leo, how about your own former love, Rosie Ricci?  To meet Rosie again was possibly the motive that prompted you to leave your estate in Italy.”

“Yes, Alfonso, I loved Rosie, as I once frankly stated to your sister on the ocean, but in a moment of peevishness she returned the engagement tokens, and the lovers’ quarrel resulted in separation.  But after the death of Lucille I found the smouldering fires of the old love for Rosie again easily fanned into a flame, so I crossed the sea in search of my dear country-woman.”