for her
again and again in vain.) "From that hour," he continued, "seeing you
in circumstances of which I could not have dared to dream, I felt
more reconciled to the past; yet, when on the verge of marriage with
another--beautiful, gifted, generous as she was--a thought, a memory
half acknowledged, dimly traced, chained back my sentiments; and
admiration, esteem, and gratitude were not love! Death--a death
melancholy and tragic--forbade this union; and I went forth in the
world, a pilgrim and a wanderer. Years rolled away, and I thought I had
conquered the desire for love,--a desire that had haunted me since
I lost thee. But, suddenly and recently, a being, beautiful as
yourself--sweet, guileless, and young as you were when we met--woke in
me a new and a strange sentiment. I will not conceal it from you: Alice,
at last I loved another! Yet, singular as it may seem to you, it was a
certain resemblance to yourself, not in feature, but in the tones of the
voice, the nameless grace of gesture and manner, the very music of your
once happy laugh,--those traits of resemblance which I can now account
for, and which children catch not from their parents only, but from
those they most see, and, loving most, most imitate in their tender
years,--all these, I say, made perhaps a chief attraction, that drew
me towards--Alice, are you prepared for it?--drew me towards Evelyn
Cameron. Know me in my real character, by my true name: I am that
Maltravers to whom the hand of Evelyn was a few weeks ago betrothed!"

* See "Ernest Maltravers," book v., p. 228.

He paused, and ventured to look up at Alice; she was exceedingly pale,
and her hands were tightly clasped together, but she neither wept nor
spoke. The worst was over; he continued more rapidly, and with less
constrained an effort: "By the art, the duplicity, the falsehood of Lord
Vargrave, I was taught in a sudden hour to believe that Evelyn was our
daughter, that you recoiled from the prospect of beholding once more the
author of so many miseries. I need not tell you, Alice, of the horror
that succeeded to love. I pass over the tortures I endured. By a train
of incidents to be related to you hereafter, I was led to suspect the
truth of Vargrave's tale. I came hither; I have learned all from Aubrey.
I regret no more the falsehood that so racked me for the time; I regret
no more the rupture of my bond with Evelyn; I regret nothing that brings
me at last free and unshackled to thy