He held a catalogue in his hand, but he very seldom consulted it. To have compared the number of the picture with that of its description would have been, to use a pet phrase with young men, an awful bore. And an awful bore he seemed to find the whole affair as he walked through the picture-lined galleries, smothering a yawn from time to time. He was evidently looking out for some one who had appointed this place as a rendezvous, and as evidently he was rather more indignant than disappointed at not finding directly the object of his search. At last, as it seemed, he had enough of it. Considering himself a sufficiently conspicuous object not to be lightly passed by by any who had once been favored with the honor of his acquaintance, he threw himself on one of the seats, fully determined to take no more trouble in the matter, but to leave the _dénouement_ to fate. There was one other on the seat he had chosen, but our young gentleman, in spite of his small vanities, was too truly a gentleman to honor the solitary woman who occupied it with that supercilious stare which, unconsciously to herself, had more than once been cast on her that day. In sheer idleness, and for want of something better to do, he looked rather attentively at the picture which faced him, and presently he too had fallen under its spell. The beauty of the woman by the sea-shore, her sadness, her desolation, attracted him powerfully. Before many moments had passed he found himself tracing every line of her face and form, and dreaming out the tragedy which her face revealed. He was awoke from his reverie by a faint sobbing sigh, and looking round he discovered that the woman who shared his seat was struggling with a faintness that seemed gradually to be overpowering her. Before he could rise to offer her assistance her head had fallen back upon the crimson cushion, the little close bonnet had dropped off, and the white face, in its chiselled beauty, lay stricken with a death-calm close to his shoulder. CHAPTER II. _ADÈLE AND MARGARET._ In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. Very young men are not, as a rule, passionate admirers of the fair sex. They like to be flattered and caressed by women, they delight in imaginary conquests, treating the sex generally with a sort of compassionate condescension. Their chief cultus is the _ego_ that is to do and to dare such great things in the untried future.