voice of the discarded
lover, who, pale and wo-worn, had been unintentionally concealed among
the trees--"God bless you, Rose!--that prayer has done me good.
Amen to every word of it! She is quite, quite gone now--another's
bride--the wife of a gentleman--and so best; the ambition which fits
her for her present station unfitted her to be my wife. I say this,
and think this--I know it! But though I do know it, her face--that
face I loved from infancy, until it became a sin for me to love it
longer--that face comes between me and reason, and its brightness
destroys all that reason taught."

Rose could not trust herself to reply. She longed to speak to him,
but she could not; she _dared_ not. He continued--"Did she leave no
message, speak no word, say nothing, to be said to me?"

"She said," replied her cousin, "that she hoped you would be happy;
that you deserved to be so"--

"Deserved to be so!" he repeated bitterly; "and that was the reason
why _she_ made me miserable. Oh! the folly, the madness of the man who
trusts to woman's love--to woman's faith! But the spell _once_ broken,
the charm once dispelled, that is enough!" And yet it was not enough,
for Edward talked on, and more than once was interrupted by Rose,
who, whenever she could vindicate her cousin, did so bravely and
generously--not in a half-consenting, frigid manner, but as a true
woman does when she defends a woman, as, if she be either good or
wise, she will always do.

Rose did not know enough of human nature to understand that the more
Edward complained of Helen's conduct and desertion, the less he really
felt it; and the generous portion of his own nature sympathised
with the very generosity which he argued against. He had found one,
who while she listened sweetly and patiently to his complaints,
vindicated, precisely as he would have desired, the idol of his
heart's first love. What we love appears so entirely our own, that
we question the right of others to blame it, whatever we may do
ourselves. If he had known the deep, the treasured secret that poor
Rose concealed within the sanctuary of her bosom, he would have
wondered at the unostentatious generosity of her pure and simple
nature.

"It is evident," said Rose Dillon to herself, when she bade Edward
adieu; "it is quite evident he never will or can love another. Such
affection is everlasting." How blind she was! "Poor fellow! he will
either die in the flower of his age of a broken heart, or