The room was still dark. It was not Mrs. Lennox’s custom to have it lighted before dinner, and when the door closed upon the ladies the young man was left alone. His thoughts were full of triumph and satisfaction, not unmingled with praise. He had attained by the chance of a moment what he had set his heart upon, he said to himself; for years he had haunted Highcourt for this end; he had been kept cruelly and unnaturally (he thought) from realizing it. Those who might have helped him, without any harm to themselves, had refused and resisted his desire, and compelled him to relinquish it. And now in a moment he had attained what he had so desired. Introduced under the most flattering circumstances, with every prepossession in his favor, having had it in his power to lay under the deepest obligation the family, the guardians as well as the girl who, he said to himself, was the only girl he had ever loved. Did he love Rosalind? He thought so, as Mrs. Lennox thought she had rheumatism. Both were serious enough--and perhaps this young stranger was not clearly aware how much it was he saw in Rosalind besides herself. He saw in her a great deal that did not meet the outward eye, though he also saw the share of beauty she possessed, magnified by his small acquaintance with women of her kind. He saw her sweet and fair and desirable in every way, as the truest lover might have done. And there were other advantages which such a lover as Roland Hamerton would have scorned to take into consideration, which Rivers--not able at his more serious age to put them entirely out of his mind--yet turned from instinctively as if it were doing her a wrong to remember them, but which this young man realized vividly and reminded himself of with rising exhilaration. With such a wife what might he not do? Blot out everything that was against him, attain everything he had ever dreamed of, secure happiness, advancement, wealth. He moved from window to window of the dim room, waiting for the ladies, in a state of exaltation indescribable. He had been raised at once from earth to heaven. There was not a circumstance that was not in his favor. He was received by them as an intimate, he was to be their escort, to be introduced by them, to form one of their party; and Rosalind! Rosalind! she was the only girl whom he had ever loved. CHAPTER XLIII.