She would study him, dress for him, live for
him, and him alone; she would have no other end, aim, thought, or
desire. She would herself be the source of all his amusement, so that he
should look for the every-day pleasures of his life to her--and, such
being the case, she would win him; she felt sure of it. Why had she been
so hopeless, so despairing? There was no real cause for it. Perhaps,
after all, he had looked upon the whole affair, not as a solemn
engagement, but as a childish farce. Perhaps he had never really thought
of her as his wife; but there would be an end to that thoughtlessness
now. What had passed on the previous day would arouse his attention, he
could never know the same indifference again.

So she rose with renewed hope. She shrank from the look of her face in
the glass. "Cold water and fresh air," she said to herself, with a
smile, "will soon remedy such paleness." And thus on that very day began
for her the new life--the life in which, no longer sure of her love, she
was to try to win it.

He would have loved her had he been able; but his own words were
true--"Love is fate."

There was nothing in common between them--no sympathy--none of those
mystical cords that, once touched, set two human hearts throbbing, and
never rest until they are one. He could not have been fonder of her than
he was, in a brotherly sense; but as for lover's love, from the first
day he had seen her, a beautiful, dark-eyed child, until the last he
had never felt the least semblance of it.

It was a story of failure. She strove as perhaps woman never before had
striven, and she succeeded in winning his truest admiration, his warmest
friendship; he felt more at home with her than any one else in the wide
world. But there it ended--she won no more.

It was not his fault; it was simply because the electric spark called
love had never been and never could be elicited between his soul and
hers. He would have done anything for her--he was her truest, best
friend; but he was not her lover.

She hoped against hope. Each day she counted the kind words he had said
to her; she noted every glance, every look, every expression. But she
could not find that she made any progress--nothing that indicated any
change from brotherly friendship to love. Still she hoped against hope,
the chances are that she would have died of a broken heart.

Then the season ended. She went back to Verdun Royal with Lady Peters,
and Lord Arleigh to Beec