I 'll tell you, Alice. You have sent away that poor boy more in love
than ever. You have let him carry away a hope which you well know is
only a delusion."

"I protest this is too bad. I never dreamed of such a lecture, and I 'll
just go downstairs and make a victim of Mr. Damer."

Alice arose and dashed out of the room; not, however, to do as she said,
but to hurry to her own room, and lock the door after her as she entered
it.

CHAPTER XXXIV. TONY ASKS COUNSEL

It was just as Bella said; Alice had sent off that poor boy "twice as
much in love as ever." Poor fellow! what a strange conflict was that
that raged within him!--all that can make life glorious, give ecstasy
to the present and hope to the future, mingled with everything that can
throw a gloom over existence, and make it a burden and a task. Must it
be ever thus?--must the most exquisite moments of our life, when we have
youth and hope and health and energy, be dashed with fears that make
us forget all the blessings of our lot, and deem ourselves the most
wretched of created beings?

In this feverish alternation he travelled along homeward,--now
thinking of the great things he could do and dare to win her love, now
foreshadowing the time when all hopes should be extinguished, and he
should walk the world alone and forsaken. He went over in memory--who
has not done so at one time or other?--all she had said to him at their
last meeting, asking what ground there might be for hope in this, what
reason for belief in that. With what intense avidity do we seek for the
sands of gold in this crushed and crumbled rock! how eagerly do we
peer to catch one glittering grain that shall whisper to us of wealth
hereafter!

Surely, thought he, Alice is too good and too true-hearted to give me
even this much of hope if she meant me to despair. Why should she offer
to write to me if she intended that I was to forget her? "I wonder,"
muttered he, in his dark spirit of doubt,--"I wonder if this be simply
the woman's way of treating a love she deems beneath her?" He had read
in some book or other that it is no uncommon thing for those women
whose grace and beauty win homage and devotion thus to sport with the
affections of their worshippers, and that in this exercise of a cruel
power they find an exquisite delight. But Alice was too proud and too
high-hearted for such an ignoble pastime. But then he had read, too,
that women sometimes fancy that, by encouraging a devotio