yes first fell upon this regal blonde, with her
sleepy, inscrutable eyes and bewildering smile. Ulysses within sound of
the siren's voice, was nothing to it. He had been warned of his danger
and had only his own curiosity to combat, while I was not even aware of
my peril, and floated within reach of this woman's power, without making
an effort to escape. She was so subtle in her influence, Paula; so
careless in the very exercise of her sovereignty. She never seemed to
command; yet men and women obeyed her. Peculiarities which mar the
matron, are often graces in a young, unmarried girl, whose thoughts are
a mystery, and whose emotions an untried field. I believed I had found
the queen of all beauty and when in an unguarded hour she betrayed her
first appreciation of my devotion, I seemed to burst into a Paradise of
delights, where every step I took, only the more intoxicated and
bewildered me. My first realization of the sensuous and earthly
character of my happiness came with the glimpse of your child-face on
that never-to-be-forgotten day when we met beside the river. Like a star
seen above the glare of a conflagration, the pure spirit that informed
your glance, flashed on my burning soul, and for a moment I knew that in
you budded the kind of woman-nature which it befitted a man to seek;
that in the hands of such a one as you would make, should he trust his
honor and bequeath his happiness. But when did a lover ever break the
bonds that imprisoned his fancy, at the inspiration of a passing voice.
I went back to Ona and forgot the child by the river.

"Paula, I have no time to utter regrets. This is a hard plain tale which
I have to relate; but if you love me still--if, as I have sometimes
imagined, you have always loved me--think what my life had been if I had
heeded the warning which God vouchsafed me on that day, and contrast it
with what it is, and what it must be.

"I went back to Ona, then, and the hold which she had upon me from the
first, took form and shape. As well as she could love any one, she loved
me, and though she had offers from one or two more advantageous sources,
she finally decided that she would risk the future and accept me, if her
father consented to the alliance. You who are the niece of the man of
whom I must now speak, may or may not know what that meant. I doubt if
you do; he left Grotewell while you were a child, and any gossip
concerning him must ever fall short of the real truth. Enough,