self and her. You
ought to marry her."

"_Does_ she like me?" he asked.

"Certainly; better than she likes any one else. She talks of you
continually: there is no subject she enjoys so much or touches upon so
often."

"It is very pleasant to hear this," he said--"very: go on for another
quarter of an hour." And he actually took out his watch and laid it upon
the table to measure the time.

"But where is the use of going on," I asked, "when you are probably
preparing some iron blow of contradiction, or forging a fresh chain to
fetter your heart?"

"Don't imagine such hard things. Fancy me yielding and melting, as I am
doing: human love rising like a freshly opened fountain in my mind and
overflowing with sweet inundation all the field I have so carefully and
with such labour prepared--so assiduously sown with the seeds of good
intentions, of self-denying plans. And now it is deluged with a
nectarous flood--the young germs swamped--delicious poison cankering
them: now I see myself stretched on an ottoman in the drawing-room at
Vale Hall at my bride Rosamond Oliver's feet: she is talking to me with
her sweet voice--gazing down on me with those eyes your skilful hand has
copied so well--smiling at me with these coral lips. She is mine--I am
hers--this present life and passing world suffice to me. Hush! say
nothing--my heart is full of delight--my senses are entranced--let the
time I marked pass in peace."

I humoured him: the watch ticked on: he breathed fast and low: I stood
silent. Amidst this hush the quartet sped; he replaced the watch, laid
the picture down, rose, and stood on the hearth.

"Now," said he, "that little space was given to delirium and delusion. I
rested my temples on the breast of temptation, and put my neck
voluntarily under her yoke of flowers. I tasted her cup. The pillow was
burning: there is an asp in the garland: the wine has a bitter taste: her
promises are hollow--her offers false: I see and know all this."

I gazed at him in wonder.

"It is strange," pursued he, "that while I love Rosamond Oliver so
wildly--with all the intensity, indeed, of a first passion, the object of
which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, fascinating--I experience at
the same time a calm, unwarped consciousness that she would not make me a
good wife; that she is not the partner suited to me; that I should
discover this within a year after marriage; and that to twelve months'
rapture would succeed a