never seemed to see that there was anything peculiar in their
intercourse. And so it went on from day to day and from week to week.

"You asked me once whether I loved her," he said one day. "I did;
but I am astonished now that it should have been so. She was very
lovely."

"I suppose so."

"The most perfect complexion that was ever seen on a lady's cheek."
Cecilia remembered that her complexion too had been praised before
this blow had fallen upon her. "The colour would come and go so
rapidly that I used to marvel what were the thoughts that drove the
blood hither and thither. There were no thoughts,--unless of her own
prettiness and her own fortunes. She accepted me as a husband because
it was necessary for her to settle in life. I was in Parliament, and
that she thought to be something. I had a house in Chester Square,
and that was something. She was promised a carriage, and that
conquered her. As the bride I had chosen for myself she became known
to many, and then she began to understand that she might have done
better with herself. I am old, and not given to many amusements. Then
came a man with a better income and with fewer years; and she did
not hesitate for a moment. When she took me aside and told me that
she had changed her mind, it was her quiescence and indifference
that disturbed me most. There was nothing of her new lover; but
simply that she did not love me. I did not stoop for a moment to a
prayer. I took her at her word, and left her. Within a week she was
acknowledged to be engaged to Captain Geraldine."

The naming of the name of course struck Cecilia Holt. She remembered
to have heard something of the coming marriage by her lover's cousin,
and something, too, of the story of the girl. But it had reached her
ear in the lightest form, and had hardly remained in her memory. It
was now of no matter, as she had determined to keep her own history
to herself. Therefore she made no exclamation when the name of
Geraldine was mentioned.

"How could I love her after that?" he continued, betraying the strong
passion which he felt. "I had loved a girl whose existence I had
imagined, and of whom I had seen merely the outward form, and had
known nothing of the inner self. What is it that we love?" he
continued. "Is it merely the coloured doll, soft to touch and
pleasant to kiss? Or is it some inner nature which we hope to
discover, and of which we have found the outside so attractive? I had
found no inner