g 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, forever 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 turned 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,
Remained lofty and lonely in HER.
Then, her life,
So untamed and so free! would she yield as a wife
Independence, long claimed 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 forever escaped to the thought
Doubt could reach not... "I love her, and all else is naught!"

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 words 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 picked 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 rolled away, and our two paths are plain,
And those two paths divide us.
"