y serious emotion. He was cured of his fancy, although
no effort of will could protect the soreness of the bruise. He had
persevered in his course of treatment--congratulating himself, at the
end, on his escape from a dangerous obsession. The picture of Sara grew
paler and paler before his eyes--indeed, it seemed to fade all too
quickly, and, with the perversity of consistent egoism, he felt many
twinges of sadness to think that he had forgotten her so soon. His
vanity would have preferred a longer combat--for even the most shallow
admit the romantic admirableness of an obstinate love. Still, what could
he ask better than this triumph over a cruel, an obstructive memory? He
had regained, so he believed, his old independence as the man of action,
energetic, self-controlled, moved by one passion only, and that the
finest of all--ambition. In surveying once more the great design of his
career, he found it an effort to bring up--from the far recesses of his
experience--the poor little sentimental episode, so insignificant and
commonplace, which, in a kind of aberration, he had taken for an affair
of the heart. He returned to England. He threw himself with vigour into
the questions which were then disturbing Churchmen. He revived a
touching acquaintance with Agnes Carillon, an acquaintance which was
peculiarly soothing to his preoccupied mind. Here was a girl, he
thought, who could be a fit helpmate. She asked for nothing,
absorbed nothing, and gave a great deal of gentle, kind companionship
when he wanted it. When he did not want it, she understood
perfectly--possessing, in an eminent degree, the rare domestic art of
being able to make herself scarce--alike in his thoughts and his
engagements. The truths did not occur to him that a woman in love could
never have been so unnaturally prudent, or that a woman whom he loved
could not have interested him so slightly. He took great pride in her
perfect skin and hair and eyes, in her beautiful, graceful, and gracious
manners, but his soul never kindled at her approach, his pulse beat no
slower at her departure. He requited her agreeableness with respect. And
so they had become engaged--to the unbounded gratification of all his
relatives, amidst the congratulations of his friends. There seemed a
certain shadowiness in his conception of their future existence together
as man and wife: something which he recognised as an interior voice
chimed in, from time to time, with provoking inter