The Mariette of the past, the Mariette of the present, seemed to me, as it were, two beings in one. The long interval which had occurred between our parting and meeting again, rendered them, as it were, distinct—a child and a woman. But yet that interval had been bridged over by constant remembrance. I had never forgotten her. I had never ceased to think of her. She had taken such a hold of my young affections, that nothing had ever been able to remove them from her, and thin, filmy lines of thought had been carried backward and forward, between the past and the present, like the threads of a spider’s web. When we had been boy and girl, I had often looked forward to the period when we should be man and woman, and I had again and again fancied that Mariette would be my wife—my own for ever. Now we were man and woman, the process was reversed; and fancy ran back to childhood. I saw in her the sister of my early days, my dearly loved play-fellow and plaything. I began to think, indeed, that I loved her better now—not that the least particle of the former love was lost: it was the foundation of all, but another love was being built up upon it. I did not know, indeed, how far that edifice was completed. I would not examine, I would not inquire, I would not scan my own heart and its feelings, although I was conscious that all the thought and anxiety I had lately bestowed upon her could hardly arise without deeper feelings than those of boyhood, or exist without increasing them. I must not say that I _resolved_ or that I _intended_ any thing; for where Mariette was concerned, I did not pause to resolve or to intend. All I desired or looked for was, to make her happy by any means, to remove her for ever from poverty, and to share with her all I had to share. But there was one difficulty, and it was this: I knew not how to explain to her the source of my present affluence—to tell her, or her father, or her mother, that even for a short few days I had been wedded to another. In my present feelings toward her, it seemed as if I had been unfaithful to her—as if I had robbed her of a part of the affection which was her due, in giving any share of my love to poor Louise. If I felt so, what—I asked myself, might she not feel? How might she bear the thought of being the second in my love? I knew well myself that she was not the second. That she was the first, the best beloved; but could I persuade her of that? And even if I did—would she not think my conduct the more base and wrong in having wedded another? If—by any chance—such early visions as I had indulged, had produced in her the same sort of indefinite impression—that we were bound to each other from very childhood—from which I could not divest my own mind, what would she think of my having forgot the bond, for even so short a period? I did not know woman’s heart. I was not aware of how much less selfish, how much less exacting is woman’s love.