Lewis woke up next morning a different man. His light-hearted youth and easy views had gone from him. The musings of the night had only showed him the position in which he was, without showing him any way out of it. He had all but pledged himself to one woman, placed himself at her disposal; and his heart had gone out to another. He felt that life would not be worth living, nor the world have any charm for him, unless he could secure Lilias as the companion of his existence. Yet at the same time he recognized that it was the sister of Lilias to whom so lightly, thinking, as it now seemed, nothing of it, he had offered that life as he might have offered a flower. Was there ever a more terrible dilemma for a young man? And he had not found it out at first. It had not been till the terrible prose of the minister set the case fully before him that he had recognized the complication which was so novel, so strange, yet to him so overwhelming. Love! how could he love this creature whom he had seen but once, of whom he knew nothing. But even to ask that question seemed a sort of blasphemy against her, against the strange and potent sweetness of his own emotion. Knew nothing! he knew everything; he knew her, the wonder of creation! To see her was enough. What doubt, what hesitation was possible? "There is none like her, none;" he was as much convinced of that as if he had watched all her ways for years. And to think that he had not had the patience to wait, or any instinct to tell him that she was here! This was the strange, the incomprehensible thing. It was a fatality. So it had been ordained in Greek plays and uncompromising tragedy. That everything which was sweetest should come too late--that one should be on the very verge of the loveliest road to Paradise, and all unawares should choose another which led a different way.