The sun goeth forth from his chambers: the sun
Ariseth, and lo! he descendeth anon.

All returns to its place. Use and Habit are powers
Far stronger than Passion, in this world of ours.
The great laws of life readjust their infraction,
And to every emotion appoint a reaction.

III.

Alfred Vargrave had time, after leaving Lucile,
To review the rash step he had taken, and feel
What the world would have call'd his erroneous position.'
Thought obtruded its claim, and enforced recognition:
Like a creditor who, when the gloss is worn out

On the coat which we once wore with pleasure no doubt,
Sends us in his account for the garment we bought.
Ev'ry spendthrift to passion is debtor to thought.

IV.

He felt ill at ease with himself. He could feel
Little doubt what the answer would be from Lucile.
Her eyes, when they parted-her voice, when they met,
Still enraptured his heart, which they haunted. And yet,
Though, exulting, he deem'd himself loved, where he loved
Through his mind a vague self-accusation there moved.
O'er his fancy, when fancy was fairest, would rise
The infantine face of Matilda, with eyes

So sad, so reproachful, so cruelly kind,

That his heart fail'd within him. In vain did he find

A thousand just reasons for what he had done :
The vision that troubled him would not be gone.
In vain did he say to himself, and with truth,
'Matilda has beauty, and fortune, and youth;
'And her heart is too young to have deeply involved
'All its hopes in the tie which must now be dissolved.

''Twere a false sense of honour in me to suppress
'The sad truth which I owe it to her to confess.
And what reason have I to presume this poor life
'Of my own, with its languid and frivolous strife,
'And without what alone might endear it to her,
'Were a boon all so precious, indeed, to confer,
'Its withdrawal can wrong her?'

6

It is not as though

I were bound to some poor village maiden, I know,

Unto whose simple heart mine were all upon earth,

'Or to whose simple fortunes my own could give worth.

Matilda, in all the world's gifts, will not miss

Aught that I could procure her. 'Tis best as it is!'

V.

In vain did he say to himself, 'When I came

To this fatal spot, I had nothing to blame

'Or reproach myself for, in the thoughts of my heart.
'I could not foresee that its pulses would start
'Into such strange emotion on seeing once more
'A woman I left with indifference before.

'I believed, and with honest conviction believed,

In my love for Matilda. I never conceived

'That another could shake it. I deem'd I had done
'With the wild heart of youth, and look'd hopefully on
To the soberer manhood, the worthier life,

'Which I sought in the love that I vow'd to my wife.

'Poor child! she shall learn the whole truth. She shall know

'What I knew not myself but a few days ago.

'The world will console her-her pride will support

'Her youth will renew its emotions. In short,

'There is nothing in me that Matilda will miss

'When once we have parted. 'Tis best as it is!'

VI.

But in vain did he reason and argue. Alas!

He yet felt unconvinced that 'twas best as it was.
Out of reach of all reason, for ever would rise

That infantine face of Matilda, with eyes

So sad, so reproachful, so cruelly kind,

That they harrow'd his heart and distracted his mind.

VII.

And then, when he turn'd from these thoughts to Lucile,
Though his heart rose enraptured, he could not but feel
A vague sense of awe of her nature. Behind
All the beauty of heart, and the graces of mind,
Which he saw and revered in her, something unknown
And unseen in that nature still troubled his own.
He felt that Lucile penetrated and prized

Whatever was noblest and best, though disguised,
In himself; but he did not feel sure that he knew,
Or completely possess'd, what, half-hidden from view,
Remain'd lofty and lonely in her.

Then, her life,
So untamed, and so free! would she yield, as a wife,
Independence, long claim'd as a woman? Her name,
So link'd by the world with that spurious fame
Which the beauty and wit of a woman assert,
In some measure, alas! to her own loss and hurt
In the serious thoughts of a man! . . . This reflection
O'er the love which he felt cast a shade of dejection,

From which he for ever escaped to the thought

Doubt could reach not. . . . 'I love her, and all else is nought!

VIII.

His hand trembled strangely in breaking the seal
Of the letter which reach'd him at last from Lucile.

At the sight of the very first word that he read,

That letter dropp'd down from his hand like the dead
Leaf in autumn, that, falling, leaves naked and bare

A desolate tree in a wide wintry air.

He pass'd his hand hurriedly over his eyes,
Bewilder'd, incredulous. Angry surprise

And dismay, in one sharp moan, broke from him. Anon
He pick'd up the page, and read rapidly on.

IX.

THE COMTESSE DE NEVERS TO LORD ALFRED VARGRAVE. 'No, Alfred!

'If over the present, when last

'We two met, rose the glamour and mist of the past,
'It hath now roll'd away, and our two paths are plain,
'And those two paths divide us.

Mine one moment hath clasp'd as the hand of a brother,
'That hand and your honour are pledged to another!
'Forgive, Alfred Vargrave, forgive me, if yet

'For that moment (now past!) I have made you forget
'What was due to yourself and that other one. Yes,
'Mine the fault, and be mine the repentance! Not less,
'In now owning this fault, Alfred, let me own, too,
'I foresaw not the sorrow involved in it.

'True,

'That meeting, which hath been so fatal, I sought,
'I alone! But, oh, deem not it was with the thought
'Or your heart to regain, or the past to rewaken.
'No! believe me, it was with the firm and unshaken

Conviction, at least, that our meeting would be

Without peril to you, although haply to me

'The salvation of all my existence.

'I own,

'When the rumour first reach'd me, which lightly made known

'To the world your engagement, my heart and my mind 'Suffer'd torture intense. It was cruel to find

'That so much of the life of my life, half unknown 'To myself, had been silently settled on one

'Upon whom but to think it would soon be a crime.

Then I said to myself, "From the thraldom which time "Hath not weaken'd there rests but one hope of escape. "That image which Fancy seems ever to shape "From the solitude left round the ruins of yore, "Is a phantom. The Being I loved is no more. "What I hear in the silence, and see in the lone "Void of life, is the young hero born of my own "Perish'd youth: and his image, serene and sublime, "In my heart rests unconscious of change and of time. "Could I see it but once more, as time and as change "Have made it, a thing unfamiliar and strange,

See, indeed, that the Being I loved in my youth "Is no more, and what rests now is only, in truth, "The hard pupil of life and the world: then, oh, then, "I should wake from a dream, and my life be again "Reconciled to the world; and, released from regret, "Take the lot fate accords to my choice."

'So we met.

'But the danger I did not foresee has occurr'd:
'The danger, alas, to yourself! I have err'd.
'But happy for both that this error hath been
'Discover'd as soon as the danger was seen!

'We meet, Alfred Vargrave, no more. I, indeed,

'Shall be far from Serchon when this letter you read.

My course is decided; my path I discern:

'Doubt is over; my future is fix'd now.

'Return,

'O return to the young living love! Whence, alas!
'If, one moment, you wander'd, think only it was
'More deeply to bury the past love.

M

'And, oh!