by her approaching the window and pulling down the blind--Edward
dwelling upon her vanishing figure with a hopeless sense of loss akin to
that which Adam is said by logicians to have felt when he first saw the
sun set, and thought, in his inexperience, that it would return no more.

He waited till her shadow had twice crossed the window, when, finding
the charming outline was not to be expected again, he left the street,
crossed the harbour-bridge, and entered his own solitary chamber on the
other side, vaguely thinking as he went (for undefined reasons),

'One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother.'

III. THE EVENTS OF EIGHT DAYS

1. FROM THE TWENTY-SECOND TO THE TWENTY-SEVENTH OF JULY

But things are not what they seem. A responsive love for Edward
Springrove had made its appearance in Cytherea's bosom with all the
fascinating attributes of a first experience, not succeeding to or
displacing other emotions, as in older hearts, but taking up entirely
new ground; as when gazing just after sunset at the pale blue sky we see
a star come into existence where nothing was before.

His parting words, 'Don't forget me,' she repeated to herself a hundred
times, and though she thought their import was probably commonplace, she
could not help toying with them,--looking at them from all points,
and investing them with meanings of love and faithfulness,--ostensibly
entertaining such meanings only as fables wherewith to pass the time,
yet in her heart admitting, for detached instants, a possibility of
their deeper truth. And thus, for hours after he had left her, her
reason flirted with her fancy as a kitten will sport with a dove,
pleasantly and smoothly through easy attitudes, but disclosing its cruel
and unyielding nature at crises.

To turn now to the more material media through which this story moves,
it so happened that the very next morning brought round a circumstance
which, slight in itself, took up a relevant and important position
between the past and the future of the persons herein concerned.

At breakfast time, just as Cytherea had again seen the postman pass
without bringing her an answer to the advertisement, as she had fully
expected he would do, Owen entered the room.

'Well,' he said, kissing her, 'you have not been alarmed, of course.
Springrove told you what I had done, and you found there was no train?'

'Yes, it was all clear. But what is the lameness owing to?'

'I don't kno