But to watch her pronounce the death warrant of all
The illusions of life-lift, unflinching, the pall
From the bier of the dead Past that woman so fair,
And so young, yet her own self-survivor; who there
Traced her life's epitaph with a finger so cold!
'Twas a picture that touch'd him with pain to behold.
He himself knew-none better-the things to be said
Upon subjects like this. Yet he bow'd down his head :
He had not the courage, he dared not decide
To aid that frail hand to the heart's suicide.

XIV.

As thus, with a trouble he could not command,
He paused, crumpling the letters he held in his hand,
You know me enough,' she continued, or what
' I would say is, you yet recollect (do you not,
'Lord Alfred?) enough of my nature, to know
That these pledges of what was perhaps long ago
'A foolish affection, I do not recall
'From those motives of prudence which actuate all
'Or most women, when their love ceases. Indeed

6

If you have such a doubt, to dispel it I need But remind you that ten years these letters have rested 'Unreclaim'd in your hands, nor should I have sug

gested

Their return, if I had not, from all that I hear,

'Fear'd those letters might now (might they not?)

interfere

With the peace of another.'

xv.

Lord Alfred looked up,

(His gaze had been fix'd on a blue Sèvres cup
With a look of profound connoisseurship-a smile
Of singular interest and care, all this while)
He look'd up, and look'd long in the face of Lucile,
To mark if that face by a sign would reveal

At the thought of Miss Darcy the least jealous pain.

He look'd keenly and long, yet he look'd there in vain.

The face was calm, cheerful, reserv'd, and precise;

'Is this woman,' he thought, 'changed to diamond or ice?'

6

You are generous, Madam,' he murmur'd at last,

And into his voice a light irony pass'd,

'If these be indeed the sole motives you feel.'

• What others but these could I have?" said Lucile.

' I might,' answer'd Alfred, 'presume, if I did
• Wish to call into question (which Heaven forbid !)
The generous feelings that find me-believe—
'Most grateful these letters you wish'd to receive
'From personal motives-'

She laugh'd at the word.

'Were it not somewhat late to have these? O my lord,

'Had I waited, indeed, for (what is it you say?)

...

'Such "personal motives" (your words) till to-day,

Would you not, of a truth, have experienced one touch

'Of dreadful remorse?'

،

You embarrass me much,'

Replied Alfred. He spoke with assurance, for here
He recover'd his ground, and had nothing to fear.

He had look'd for reproaches, and fully arranged
His forces. But straightway the enemy changed
The position.

XVI.

'Come!' gaily she here interposed, With a smile whose divinely deep sweetness disclosed Some depth in her nature he never had known, While she tenderly laid her light hand on his own, 'Do not think I abuse the occasion. We gain

6

'Justice, judgment, with years, or else years are in vain.

From me not a single reproach can you hear.

'I have sinn'd to myself to the world-nay, I fear

6

To you chiefly. The woman who loves should, indeed,

'Be the guide of the man that she loves. She should heed

6

Not her selfish and often mistaken desires,

But his interest whose fate her own interest inspires;

'And, rather than seek to allure, for her sake,

'His life down the turbulent, fanciful wake

• Of impossible destinies, use all her art

That his place in the world find its place in her heart. 'I, alas! I perceived not this truth till too late; 'I tormented your youth, I have darken'd your fate. Forgive me the ill I have done for the sake

Of its long expiation!'

XVII.

Lord Alfred, awake,

Seem'd to wander from dream on to dream. In that seat

Where he sat as a criminal, ready to meet

His accuser, he found himself turn'd by some change,
As surprising and all unexpected as strange,

To the judge from whose mercy indulgence was sought.
All the world's foolish pride in that moment was nought;
He felt all his plausible theories posed;

And, thrill'd by the beauty of nature disclosed
In the pathos of all he had witness'd, his head
And his knee he bow'd humbly, and faltering said,
'Ah, Madam! I feel that I never till now
Comprehended you-never! I blush to avow
That I have not deserved you.'

XVIII.

'No, no!' answer'd she;

'When you knew me, I was not what now I may be. Could the past be transferr'd, were I now to receive The love of a man whom the world loves, believe'

(Thought Alfred, -' O hypocrite! loved and adored By a duke, a grand seigneur, the fashion's gay lord!')

'Believe,' she resumed, ' if I had to dispose

'Of his life in the world where his fame should repose, 'I think I should know how to help his career, 'And to add to its happiness-not, as I fear

I once sought, to destroy it.'

'Is this an advance?'

Thought Lord Alfred, and raised with a passionate

glance

The hand of Lucile to his lips.

'Twas a hand

White, delicate, dimpled, warm, languid, and bland.

The hand of a woman is often, in youth,

Somewhat rough, somewhat red, somewhat graceless in

* truth;

Does its beauty refine, as its pulses grow calm,

Or as Sorrow has cross'd the life-line in the palm?

XIX.

The more that he look'd, that he listen'd, the more
He discover'd perfections unnoticed before.
Whatever of strangeness, and wildness, and pride
She retained in her character, now undescried
In the depths of her being, nought outward betray'd;
Not a look that she look'd, not a word that she said.
Less salient than once, less poetic perchance,
This woman who thus had survived the romance
That had made him its hero, and breathed him its sighs,
Seem'd more charming a thousand times o'er to his eyes.
Alfred Vargrave forgot, ere an hour was thus gone,
All the years which between their existence had flown.
Nay, the whole of his life was forgotten. He seem'd
With some woman unknown till that hour; he half deem'd
That they met in that hour for the first time; and
thought

That love at first sight from such eyes might be caught.

xx.

Together they talk'd of the years since when last
They parted, contrasting the present, the past.