l intensity of hold from the fact of its being allied with the
earliest outburst of physical passion. Above all it is thus if the
attachment has been brought about by other charms than those of mere
personal beauty. Emily could not be called beautiful, in the ordinary
acceptation of the word; for all that, her face grew to possess for
Wilfrid a perfection of loveliness beyond anything that he would ever
again see in the countenance of fairest woman. Had he been markedly
susceptible to female beauty, it is certain that he would have fallen in
love with Beatrice Redwing long before he ever saw Emily, for Beatrice
was fair to look upon as few girls are. He had not done so; he had
scarcely--a strange thing--been tempted to think of doing so. That is to
say, it needed something more to fire his instincts. The first five
minutes that he spent in Emily's presence made him more conscious of
womanhood than years of constant association with Beatrice. This love,
riveting itself among the intricacies of his being, could not be torn
out, and threatened to resist all piecemeal extraction. Wilfrid regained
the command of his mind, and outwardly seemed recovered beyond all
danger of relapse; but he did not deceive himself into believing that
Emily was henceforth indifferent to him. He knew that to stand again
before her would be to declare again his utter bondage, body and soul.
He loved her still, loved her as his life; he desired her as
passionately as ever. She was not often in his thoughts no more is the
consciousness of the processes whereby our being supports itself. But he
had only to let his mind turn to her, and he scoffed at the hope that
any other could ever be to him what Emily had been, and was, and would
be.

He saw very little of Beatrice, but it came to his ears that her life
had undergone a change in several respects, that she spent hours daily
in strenuous study of music, and was less seen in the frivolous world.
No hint of the purpose Beatrice secretly entertained ever reached him
till, long after, the purpose became action. He felt that she shunned
him, and by degrees he thought he understood her behaviour. Wilfrid had
none of the vulgarest vanity; another man would long ago have suspected
that this beautiful girl was in love with him; Wilfrid had remained
absolutely without a suspicion of the kind. He had always taken in good
faith her declared aversion for his views; he had believed that her
nature and his own we