I loved Lenore Hyland--I felt that I ever should, as long as life was left me. Such being the case, was it right for me to endeavour to gain the affections of an unsophisticated girl like Jessie H--? Would it be honourable of me to take advantage of that incident--which had no doubt favoured her first inclination towards me? To win her heart, and then forsake her, would be to inflict upon her the same sorrow I was myself suffering for the loss of Lenore. Lenore was still more dear to me than life; and I had only lived since losing her, because I believed it a crime to die, until some Supreme Power should call me to come. And yet should I ever return to Liverpool, and find Lenore a widow--even though she should wish it--I could never marry her! "She can never be mine," thought I. "She never loved me; or she would have waited for my return. Why, then, should I not love Jessie, and make her my wife?" There are many who would have adopted this alternative; and without thinking there was any wrong in it. I did, however. I knew that I could never love Jessie, as I had loved Lenore--to whose memory I could not help proving true, notwithstanding that she had abandoned me for another. This feeling on my part may have been folly--to a degree scarce surpassed by my mother's infatuation for Mr Leary; but to know that a certain course of action is foolish, does not always prevent one from pursuing it. "Shall I marry Jessie, and become contented--perhaps happy? Or shall I remain single--true to the memory of the lost Lenore--and continue the aimless, wandering, wretched existence I have lately experienced?" Long and violent was the struggle within my soul, before I could determine upon the answers to these self-asked questions. I knew that I could love Jessie; but never as I should. "Would it be right, then, for me to marry her?" I answered the last question by putting another. "Should I myself wish to have a wife, who loved another man, and yet pretended for me an affection she did not feel?" I need scarcely say, that this interrogatory received an instantaneous response in the negative. It determined me to separate from Jessie H--, and at once. To remain any longer in her society--to stay even another day under the roof of her father's house, would be a crime for which I could never forgive myself. To-morrow I should start for Melbourne. I had been walking on the bank of the river, when these reflections, and the final resolve, passed through my mind. I was turning to go back to the house, when I saw Jessie straying near. She approached me, as if by accident. "Miss H--," said I, "I am going to take leave of you." "Going to leave me!" she exclaimed, her voice quivering as she spoke. "Yes; I must start for Melbourne to-morrow morning." She remained silent for some seconds; and I could see that the colour had forsaken her checks. "I am very sorry," she said at length, "very sorry to hear it."