She had not stinted the assurance of her love, but had
told him that they must both turn aside and learn to love
elsewhere. He had done so, with too complete a readiness! She
had dreamed of a second love, which should obliterate the first,--
which might still leave to her the memory of the romance of her
earlier passion. Then this boy had come her way! With him all her
ambition might have been satisfied. She desired high rank and
great wealth. With him she might have had it all. And then, too,
though there would always be the memory of that early passion, yet
she could in another fashion love this youth. He was pleasant to
her, and gracious;--and she had told herself that if it should be
so that this great fortune might be hers, she would atone to him
fully for that past romance by the wife-like devotion of her life.
The cup had come within the reach of her fingers, but she had not
grasped it. Her happiness, her triumphs, her great success had
been there, present to her, and she had dallied with her fortune.
There had been a day on which he had been all but at her feet, and
on the next he had been prostrate at the feet of another.
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