“Why have I always lived so lonely and apart? Why have I never cared, when I was younger and in the way of such things, for any sweet, gentle woman, who might in time have learnt to care for me?” Surely it was very strange! It never occurred to him that after all it was not yet too late for the tree of his life to bear the fruit of love; all the richer and fuller, perhaps, for having been somewhat late of maturing. He imagined himself altogether beyond the pale of such things. Too hard and dry, too naturally unimpressionable. Might he not think so? He had escaped heart-whole from much fascination, for his life had not been altogether spent in a study or a cell. He had seen beauty in all its forms. He had even, most unanswerable of all, been unimpressed—nay, rather revolted than, attracted—by charms displayed expressly for his benefit. Those of the beautiful Florence Vyse. CHAPTER VIII. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST MARGARET. “For this reason I should wish never to be in love all the days of my life. The loss would grieve me to death.” MEPHISTO. “Joy must have sorrow, sorrow joy.” HAYWARD’S FAUST. THE lessons went on fairly enough. There were days on which Lotty’s conduct could not be truthfully described as “obedient and attentive;” days, too, on which poor Sybil was provokingly absent and dreamy. Still there was nothing of sufficient importance to risk the children’s forfeiture of the promised treat. Sybil, indeed, was not deserving of blame for the sleepy, stupid moods that occasionally over-powered her. As Marion learnt to know her better, she found that these always preceded periods of sharp suffering for the poor child. Some hours of headache, almost maddening in its intensity, and invariably followed by prostration and weakness painful to witness. It seemed to Marion, anxious for the child’s peace and comfort, that there must be some cause for these attacks, for they evidently had to do greatly with her mental and nervous condition at the time. She tried gradually to gain the little girl’s confidence, for that there was something to tell she felt convinced; but whenever she thought that Sybil was on the verge of disclosing her secret distress, the child seemed to grow frightened again, and would say no more. The days passed on smoothly and pleasantly.