gave her full occupation
apart from the workings of her own mind. As to her case, he might
have offered the excuse that she really had nothing of the aspect of a
lovesick young lady, and was not a bit sea-green to view, or lamentable
in tone. He was sufficiently humane to have felt for anyone suffering,
and the proof of it is, that the only creature he saw under such an
influence he pitied so deplorably, as to make melancholy a habit with
him. He fretted her because he would do nothing, and this spectacle of
a lover beloved, but consenting to be mystified, consentingly
paralyzed:--of a lover beloved--!

"Does she love you?" said Emilia, beseechingly.

"If the truth is in her, she does," he returned.

"She has told you she loves you?--that she loves no one else?"

"Of this I am certain."

"Then, why are you downcast? my goodness! I would take her by the hand
'Woman; do you know yourself? you belong to me!'--I would say that; and
never let go her hand. That would decide everything. She must come
to you then, or you know what it is that means to separate you. My
goodness! I see it so plain!"

But he declined to look thus low, and stood pitifully smiling:--This
spectacle, together with some subtle spur from the talk of love, roused
Emilia from her lethargy. The warmth of a new desire struck around her
heart. The old belief in her power over Wilfrid joined to a distinct
admission that she had for the moment lost him; and she said, "Yes; now,
as I am now, he can abandon me:" but how if he should see her and hear
her in that hushed hour when she was to stand as a star before men?
Emilia flushed and trembled. She lived vividly though her far-projected
sensations, until truly pity for Wilfrid was active in her bosom, she
feeling how he would yearn for her. The vengeance seemed to her so keen
that pity could not fail to come. Thus, to her contemplation, their
positions became reversed: it was Wilfrid now who stood in the darkness,
unselected. Her fiery fancy, unchained from the despotic heart,
illumined her under the golden future.

"Come to us this evening, I will sing to you," she said, and the
'Englishman under a rope' bowed assentingly.

"Sad songs, if you like," she added.

"I have always thought sadness more musical than mirth," said he.
"Surely there is more grace in sadness!"

Poetry, sculpture, and songs, and all the Arts, were brought forward in
mournful array to demonstrate the truth of his theory.

When