Time, they say, can efface all things, but in truth it can efface nothing but its own inability to smooth out the real problems of life; so at least I have found in the one instance in which I have challenged time to do its best for me, a slave bound down by an unholy wizardry; or else, perhaps, it was that Shelmerdene was not made of the stuff which fades into the years and becomes musty and haggard in their increasing company. I do not know. But, take it as I will, all the service time has been able to do for me has been negative, for without disarranging one hair of her head it has only emphasised in me the profound and subtle influence of that gracefully licentious woman whom I once called Shelmerdene, because, I told her, "it is the name of an American girl which I found in a very bad American novel about the fanatical Puritans of New England, and the name seems to suit you because in New England they would have treated you exactly as they treated Shelmerdene Gray, the heroine of this book, whom they branded and burnt as a shameless woman, but loved in their withered hearts for her gaiety, and elegance, and wit, which they couldn't understand, but vaguely felt was as much an expression of Christ as their own wizened virtue."