I hurried off to Margot, either to
her home or to the theatre. To see her, to speak to her, even to hear
her, was enough to call me back once more to life and the love, of life.
There was that in her own career, with all its changes and vicissitudes,
that seemed to fashion her mind into moods similar to my own. On one
day she would be to me like a sister,--kind and warmly affectionate; on
another, she would be as though I were her accepted lover, and show me
all the tender interest of one whose fate was bound up with my own;
and perhaps the very next meeting she would receive me coldly and
distrustfully, and darkly hint that my secret life was known to her.

These were to me moments of intense agony. To see through them was worse
than any death, and the very dread of them made existence a perfect
torture. Till I had seen her I never knew, each day, in what mood she
might feel towards me; and if I revelled in the heaven of her smiles,
felt her deep glances descending into my very heart, and thrilled with
ecstasy at each word she uttered, suddenly there would come the thought
that this was but a dream, and that to-morrow would be the dreadful
awaking!

Her conduct was inexplicable, for it changed sometimes within the
compass of a few hours, and from warmest confidence would become the
most chilling reserve. She would pour out her whole heart before me;
tell me how barren were all the triumphs she had achieved; how remote
from happiness was this eternal struggle for fame; how her nature
yearned for one true, unchanging devotion; how this mockery of passion
made shipwreck of all real feeling, and left the nature worn out,
wearied, and exhausted. She would, perhaps at our next meeting, efface
all thought of this confidence by some passionate burst of enthusiasm
for the stage, and some bold apostrophe to the glory of a great
success,--scornfully contrasting such a moment with the whole happiness
of a life spent m obscurity. I own that in these outbursts of her
wildest imagination her beauty of expression attained its highest
excellence. Her dark eyes flashed with the fire of an inspired nature,
and her whole figure seemed imbued with a more than mortal loveliness;
while in her softer moods there was a sad and plaintive tenderness about
her that subdued the spirit, and made her seem even more worthy of love
than she had been of admiration. These fitful changes, which at first
were only displayed in private, became after a wh