she wished to retain him for his own benefit alone, and without
thought of any happiness or comfort to be derived by her from his
presence. Had she been accustomed closely to analyze her feelings, she
might have perceived, perhaps, that, in her growing isolation, it was no
unpleasant thing to look upon the features and listen to the tones which
carried her memory back to her early days of poverty, when, except for a
short interval, her life had been at its happiest. But had she known and
acknowledged all this, it would not have startled her, for she would
have felt that, in her heart, there was not the slightest accompanying
shade of disloyalty. Her nature was not one to admit of sudden transfers
of allegiance. It was rather one in which a real love would last
forever. When the first romantic liking for Cleotos had consumed itself,
from the ashes there had sprung no new passion for him, but merely the
flowers of earnest, true-hearted friendship. And it was her misfortune,
perhaps, that the real love for another which had succeeded would not in
turn consume itself, but would continue to flourish green and perennial,
though now seemingly fated to bask no longer in the sunshine of kindly
words and actions, but only to cower beneath the chill of harsh and
wanton neglect.

Cleotos therefore remained--at first passing weary days of bitter,
heartbreaking despondency. His lost liberty he had borne without much
complaint, for it was merely the fortune of war, and hundreds of his
countrymen were sharing the same fate with him. But to lose that love
upon which he had believed all the happiness of his life depended, was a
blow to which, for a time, no philosophy could reconcile him--the more
particularly as the manner in which that loss had been forced upon him
seemed, to his sensitive nature, to be marked by peculiar severity. To
have had her torn from him in any ordinary way--to part with her in some
quarrel in which either side might be partially right, and thenceforth
never to see her again--or to be obliged to yield her up to the superior
claims of an open, generous rivalry--any of these things would, in
itself, have been sufficient affliction. But it was far worse than all
this to be obliged to meet her at every turn, holding out her hand to
him in pleasant greeting, and uttering words of welcoming import; and
all with an unblushing appearance of friendly interest, as though his
relations with her had never been other than th