Thrice he crossed the room; then he flung himself down on the davenport beside Mrs.Owen.
"I don't know, Sally; I don't know! She was high-spirited as a girl, a little willful and impulsive, but with the best heart in the world.

She lost her mother too soon; and in her girlhood we had no home--not even the half-homes possible to naval officers.

She had a good natural voice and wanted to study music, so after we had been settled at Madison College a year I left her in New York with a woman I knew pretty well--the widow of a brother officer.

It was a horrible, terrible, hideous mistake.

The life of the city went to her head.