There were other questions, however, to be asked, referring only to probabilities. The first question was whether there existed any chance of obtaining het love in return, notwithstanding the previous attachment which she entertained towards Arthur Hargrave. This was a difficult problem to solve; for though there were hopes, from the friendship with which Lucy Effingham seemed to regard him, and from her demeanour during that evening, which made his heart beat high, yet there had been nothing so decided in word, or even in manner, as to justify him in any very sanguine expectations. Love and hope, however, are almost inseparable: and the smiling goddess first produced one argument from her store, and then another, to show him that there was no reason to despair. In the first place, Lucy had seen this young man, this Lieutenant Hargrave, not very often, according to his mother's account; in the next place, she knew that he was disapproved, disliked, and contemned by all whom she had cause to esteem; and, in the third place, she had made no resistance to the will of her parents, nor proffered a word of opposition. In short, he settled it in his own mind that there was hope for him; but then came the question, could he be satisfied with that portion of affection which he could hope to gain from a heart that had loved before. He asked himself if it were possible that any heart could love really twice; and he felt inclined to answer in words almost equally strong, but not so beautiful, as those of Walter Savage Landor, when the great poet says: "Tell me: if ever, Eros! are revealed Thy secrets to the earth: have they been true To any love who speak about the first? What! shall these holier lights, like twinkling stars In the few hours assigned them, change their place, And, when comes ampler splendour, disappear? Idler I am; and pardon, not reply, Implore from thee, thus questioned. Well I know Thou strikest, like Olympian Jove, but once." But Charles Tyrrell loved, and though he would have given worlds that Lucy Effingham had never felt one feeling of attachment to another; though he knew, if he would have owned it, that her having done so would be a bitter drop in his cup through life, even if she accepted him willingly; though he could not have denied, if he had still gone on to question himself closely, that no signs of affection to himself, in after life would ever convince him that she loved him as fully, as truly, as entirely as if she had never loved another, yet Charles Tyrrell loved, and the hope of possessing Lucy Effingham was sufficient to make him stride over every objection.