e they confirmed my despair, thawed the
ice at my heart. I kissed the envelope that she had touched, the flowers
she had tended, the pillow on which her head had been wont to rest. I
called wildly on her name. I threw myself on the floor in my great
agony, and wept aloud.

I cannot tell how long I may have lain there; but it seemed like a
lifetime. Long enough, at all events, to drink the bitter draught to the
last drop--long enough to learn that life had now no grief in store for
which I should weep again.

CHAPTER LIV.

TREATETH OF MANY THINGS; BUT CHIEFLY OF BOOKS AND POETS.

Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good.

WORDSWORTH.

There are times when this beautiful world seems to put on a mourning
garb, as if sympathizing, like a gentle mother, with the grief that
consumes us; when the trees shake their arms in mute sorrow, and scatter
their faded leaves like ashes on our heads; when the slow rains weep
down upon us, and the very clouds look cold above. Then, like Hamlet the
Dane, we take no pleasure in the life that weighs so wearily upon us,
and deem "this goodly frame, the earth, a sterile promonotory; this most
excellent canopy, the air, this brave, overhanging firmament, this
majestical roof fretted with golden fire, a foul and pestilent
congregation of vapors."

So it was with me, in the heavy time that followed my return to Paris. I
had lost everything in losing her I loved. I had no aim in life. No
occupation. No hope. No rest. The clouds had rolled between me and the
sun, and wrapped me in their cold shadows, and all was dark about me. I
felt that I could say with an old writer--"For the world, I count it,
not an inn, but an hospital; and a place, not to live, but to die in."

Week after week I lingered in Paris, hoping against hope, and always
seeking her. I had a haunting conviction that she was not far off, and
that, if I only had strength to persevere, I must find her. Possessed by
this fixed idea, I paced the sultry streets day after day throughout the
burning months of June and July; lingered at dusk and early morning
about the gardens of the Luxembourg, and such other quiet places as she
might frequent; and, heedless alike of fatigue, or heat, or tempest,
traversed the dusty city over and over again from barrier to barrier, in
every direction.

Could I but see her once more--once only! Could I but listen to her
swe