But now, as all her past, with its interior life, glided before her, by a grief the most intolerable she had yet known, the woman became aware that it was no longer penitence for the injured friend—it was despair for the lover she had lost. In that stormy interview, out of all the confused and struggling elements of her life-long self-reproach, love—the love of woman—had flashed suddenly, luminously, as the love of youth at first sight. Strange—but the very disparity of years seemed gone! She, the matured, sorrowful woman, was so much nearer to the man, still young in heart, and little changed in person, than the gay girl of seventeen had been to the grave friend of forty! Strange, but those vehement reproaches had awakened emotions deeper in the core of the wild mortal breast than all that chivalrous homage which had exalted her into the ideal of dreaming poets. Strange, strange, strange! But where there is nothing strange, there—is there ever love?
And with this revelation of her own altered heart came the clearer and fresher insight into the nature and character of the man she loved. Hitherto she had recognized but his virtues—now she beheld his failings; beholding them as if virtues, loved him more; and, loving him, more despaired. She recognized that all-pervading indomitable pride, which, interwoven with his sense of honor, became as relentless as it was unrevengeful. She comprehended now, that the more he loved her, the less he would forgive; and, recalling the unexpected gentleness of his farewell words, she felt that in his promised blessing lay the sentence that annihilated every hope.
CHAPTER III.
A cold night; sharp frost; winter set in. The shutters are closed, the curtains drawn, the fire burns clear, and the lights are softly shaded in Alban Morley's drawing-room. The old bachelor is at home again. He had returned that day; sent to Lionel to come to him; and Lionel had already told him what had transpired in his absence—from the identification of Waife with William Losely, to Lady Montfort's visit to Fawley, which had taken place two days before, and of which she had informed Lionel by a few hasty lines, stating her inability to soften Mr.
