Come, I assume the privilege of advice--the night air is
a luxury you must not indulge."

"No, no, it refreshes me--it soothes. You misunderstand me, I have no
illness that still skies and sleeping flowers can increase."

Maltravers, as is evident, was not in love with Florence, but he could
not fail, brought, as he had lately been, under the direct influence
of her rare and prodigal gifts, mental and personal, to feel for her a
strong and even affectionate interest--the very frankness with which he
was accustomed to speak to her, and the many links of communion there
necessarily were between himself and a mind so naturally powerful and
so richly cultivated, had already established their acquaintance upon an
intimate footing.

"I cannot restrain you, Lady Florence," said he, half smiling, "but
my conscience will not let me be an accomplice. I will turn king's
evidence, and hunt out Lord Saxingham to send him to you."

Lady Florence, whose face was averted from his, did not appear to hear
him.

"And you, Mr. Maltravers," turning quickly round--"you--have you
friends? Do you feel that there are, I do not say public, but private
affections and duties, for which life is made less a possession than a
trust?"

"Lady Florence--no!--I have friends, it is true, and Cleveland is of the
nearest; but the life within life--the second self, in whom we vest
the right and mastery over our own being--I know it not. But is it," he
added, after a pause, "a rare privation? Perhaps it is a happy one.
I have learned to lean on my own soul, and not look elsewhere for the
reeds that a wind can break."

"Ah, it is a cold philosophy--you may reconcile yourself to its wisdom
in the world, in the hum and shock of men; but in solitude, with
Nature--ah, no! While the mind alone is occupied, you may be contented
with the pride of stoicism; but there are moments when the _heart_
wakens as from a sleep--wakens like a frightened child--to feel itself
alone and in the dark."

Ernest was silent, and Florence continued, in an altered voice: "This
is a strange conversation--and you must think me indeed a wild,
romance-reading person, as the world is apt to call me. But if I
live--I--pshaw!--life denies ambition to women."

"If a woman like you, Lady Florence, should ever love, it will be one
in whose career you may perhaps find that noblest of all ambitions--the
ambition women only feel--the ambition for another!"

"Ah! but I shall never love,