him so attentively. From that instant his
heart sunk in his bosom. Memory's magic mirror was before him, and
in it he saw pictured the whole scene of that last meeting with
Edith.

A little while afterward, and Edwin Florence was missed from the
pleasant company. Where was he? Alone in the solitude of his own
chamber, with his thoughts upon the past. Again he had been reading
over those pages of his Book of Life in which was written the
history of his intimacy with and desertion of Edith; and the record
seemed as fresh as if made but the day before. It was in vain that
he sought to close or avert his eyes. There seemed a spell upon him;
and he could only look and read.

"Fatal error!" he murmured to himself, as he struggled to free
himself from his thraldom to the past. "Fatal error! How a single
act will curse a man through life. Oh! if I could but extinguish the
whole of this memory! If I could wipe out the hand-writing. Sorrow,
repentance, is of no avail. The past is gone for ever. Why then
should I thus continue to be unhappy over what I cannot alter? It
avails nothing to Edith. She is happy--far happier than if she had
remained on this troublesome earth."

But, even while he uttered these words, there came into his mind
such a realizing sense of what the poor girl must have suffered,
when she found her love thrown back upon her, crushing her heart by
its weight, that he bowed his head upon his bosom and in bitter
self-upbraidings passed the hours until midnight, when sleep locked
up his senses, and calmed the turbulence of his feelings.

CHAPTER III.

MONTHS elapsed before Edwin Florence ventured again into company.

"Why will you shut yourself up after this fashion?" said an
acquaintance to him one day. "It isn't just to your friends. I've
heard half a dozen persons asking for you lately. This hermit life
you are leading is, let me tell you, a very foolish life."

The friend who thus spoke knew nothing of the young man's heart
history.

"No one really misses me," said Florence, in reply.

"In that you are mistaken," returned the friend. "You are missed. I
have heard one young lady, at least, ask for you of late, more than
a dozen times."

"Indeed! A _young_ lady?"

"Yes; and a very beautiful young lady at that."

"In whose eyes can I have found such favor?"

"You have met Miss Clara Weldon?"

"Only once."

"But once!"

"That is all."

"Then it must be a case of love at first sight-