“She said truly,” he thought, “that I was more fortunate than she in that I am free and unfettered, bound by no uncongenial ties to another. For me at least it is no sin to love her still, for I know it is not in my nature ever to replace her by any other woman. And who knows but what some day in the far future, though I may never see her again, I may in some way be able to serve her, to lighten the lot it is so bitter to me to think I have been the means of darkening.” And somehow there came into his mind the remembrance of a well-known, simple little German ballad, that years and years ago, as a mere boy, he had liked and been struck by. For he had been peculiar as a boy—dreamy, morbid and sentimental. The two last verses rang in his ears that night, over and over again he heard them. And ever after they were associated with what this bitter day had brought to pass. And the face of the dead maiden on the bier grew to him like that of his own lost love. These were the words that thus haunted him— “Der dritte hub ihnDer dritte hub ihn wieder sogleich Und kusste sie an den Mund so bleich.” “Dich liebt’ ich immer, dich lieb ich noch heut, Und werde dich lieben in Ewigkeit.” From London a day or two later he wrote to his mother, telling her simply, and in as few words as possible, that the hopes he had confided to her, were utterly and for ever at an end. He begged her to spare him the pain of entering into useless particulars, and enjoined her never, if she valued his peace and comfort, to allude to the affair directly or indirectly to him or anyone else. Lady Severn obeyed him implicitly, and only in the recesses of her own heart, as I said, abused “Sir Archibald’s niece” for the sorrow she had brought upon her son. Late in the autumn, after seeing his mother and nieces comfortably re-established at Medhurst, and assisting at the gorgeous nuptials of Florence Vyse and Mr. Chepstow, Sir Ralph left England for an indefinite time: to travel in strange and distant lands, in search—not of happiness—but of interest and occupation sufficient to make life endurable. CHAPTER III. THE END OF THE HONEYMOON. “O death, death, death, thou ever floating cloud, There are enough unhappy on this earth, Pass by the happy souls that love to live: I pray thee pass before my light of life And shadow all my soul that I may die. Thou weighest heavy on the heart within, Weigh heavy on my eyelids: let me die.” ŒNONE.