never moved from the
place where she had disappeared, though he was conscious of attracting
the attention of passers-by, and now and then a whispered comment of
derision fell upon his ear.

Several equipages drove up to Lady Langdon's door, and her guests
gradually departed. Soon after the drawing-room was deserted, the lights
were extinguished, the windows closed. Other lights brightened the
casements above. Still Maurice remained riveted to the spot,
unreasonably hoping to behold Madeleine for one fleeting moment again.
By and by, one window after another grew dark; but not until the last
light went out could he force himself to turn away and retrace his steps
to the hotel.

"Will the dawn never come?" How often that question rises involuntarily
to the lips, through the long night of expectation that precedes a
wished-for day! _Time_--that is, the sense of its duration--is but
another word for _state_,--state of mind. The length or briefness of the
hour is so completely governed by the mood of one's spirits that it
becomes easy for those who have learned this truth from experience to
conceive a thousand years but as a day to the blessed,--a day of
torture, an age to the miserable; and to comprehend that _time itself_
can have no existence, and its computation must be replaced by _state_
in the eternal hereafter where we shall live in the spirit only.

"Will the dawn never come?" Maurice repeated hundreds of times as that
night dragged its leaden, lagging feet with the slow movement of
centuries.

The dim, late London morning came at last to bring with it a new
perplexity. It would be a breach of etiquette to call upon Lady Vivian
at too early an hour; yet, how was Maurice to curb the headlong rush of
his impatience until the prescribed period for ceremonious visits
arrived? A stranger in London, it might be supposed that the numberless
noteworthy objects by which he was environed might have diverted his
attention; but one engrossing thought so completely filled his whole
being that it rendered him blind to all the marvels of art or beauties
of nature. Yet to remain imprisoned at the hotel was out of the
question. He concluded to spend his morning in Hyde Park, chiefly
because it was not far distant from Grosvenor Square. But the
attractions of the noble park, through which he listlessly sauntered,
and of the adjacent Kensington Gardens, to which he unconsciously
extended his rambles, were entirely lost upon the