xplanation, for ingenuities
of argument, which, unsatisfactory as they seemed to himself, might yet,
he thought, help her to the reconciliation he knew she desired. He was
scarcely less anxious for it. For Beatrice he would never know that
limitless passion, that infinite yearning alike of spirit and of sense,
which had been his love for Emily; but she was very dear to him, and
with all his heart he desired to make her happiness. He imaged her
beauty and her talent with pride which made his veins warmer. Her
husband, he would be loyal to his last breath. Community of life would
establish that intimate alliance of heart and soul which every year
makes more enduring. Were they not young flesh and blood, he and she?
And could a bodiless ghost come between them, a mere voice of
long-vanished time, insubstantial, unseizable, as the murmur in these
chestnut-leaves?

He grew tired of the attitude which at first had been reposeful, and
rose to wander further. Someone else, it seemed, had been tempted to
this quiet corner, away from the road; a woman was walking at a little
distance, and reading as she walked. The thought passed through his mind
that a woman never looked more graceful than when walking with her head
bent over a book. When he looked that way again, he found that she had
come much nearer, still very intent upon her reading. She had, in truth,
a comely figure, one which suggested a face of the nobler kind. She
would look up presently.

Did not that form, that movement as she walked, stir memories? Yes, he
had known someone who might well have paced thus beneath spreading
trees, with her eyes upon a book of poetry; not unlike this stranger,
outwardly. In what black, skyless, leafless town was she pursuing her
lonely life?--Lonely? why should it be so? Emily could not go on her way
without meeting one whom her sweetness and her power would enthral, and
the reasons, whatever they were, that had forbidden her marriage six or
seven years ago, were not likely to resist time. He tried to hope that
the happier lot had by this solaced her. Do we not change so? His own
love--see how it had faded!

Half purposely, he had turned so as to pass near the reader. At the
distance of a few yards from her, he stayed his step. A little nearer
she came, then something made her aware of his presence. She raised her
eyes, the eyes of Emily Hood.

Her hands fell, one still holding the book open. He, who was prepared
already, could wa