had that day, and how I enjoyed it all!--that night I
suspected that Geoffrey loved you, Sylvia, and was glad to think it. A
month later I was sure of it, and found in that knowledge the great
hardship of my life, because I loved you myself. Audacious thing! how
dared you steal into my heart and take possession when I had turned my
last guest out and barred the door? I thought I had done with the
sentiment that had so nearly wrecked me once, but see how blind I
was--the false love only made me readier for the true. You never seemed
a child to me, Sylvia, because you have an old soul in a young body, and
your father's trials and temptations live again in you. This first
attracted me. I liked to watch, to question, to study the human enigma
to which I had found a clue from its maker's lips. I liked your candor
and simplicity, your courage and caprice. Even your faults found favor
in my eyes; for pride, will, impetuosity were old friends of mine, and I
liked to see them working in another shape. At first you were a
curiosity, then an amusement, then a necessity. I wanted you, not
occasionally, but constantly. You put salt and savor into life for me;
for whether you spoke or were silent, were sweet or sour, friendly or
cold, I was satisfied to feel your nearness, and always took away an
inward content which nothing else could give me. This affection was so
unlike the other that I deceived myself for a time--not long. I soon
knew what had befallen me, soon felt that this sentiment was good to
feel, because I forgot my turbulent and worser self and felt the nobler
regenerated by the innocent companionship you gave me. I wanted you, but
it was not the touch of hands or lips, the soft encounter of eyes, the
tones of tenderness, I wanted most. It was that something beyond my
reach, vital and vestal, invisible, yet irresistible; that something, be
it heart, soul, or mind, which drew me to you by an attraction genial
and genuine as itself. My Sylvia, that was love, and when it came to me
I took it in, sure that whether its fruition was granted or denied I
should be a manlier man for having harbored it even for an hour. Why
turn your face away? Well, hide it if you will, but lean here as you did
once so long ago."

She let him lay it on his shoulder, still feeling that Moor was one to
look below the surface of these things and own that she did well in
giving so pure a love a happy moment before its death, as she would have
cherishe