"I love her as one who is dead to me--passed away out of my sphere of action, and never likely to cross it again!" he answered. "I have always thought so--I would have told you that these were my thoughts, had you asked me on that night I sought your hand. She was dead to me--gone from me--some one apart from the girl who lives and breathes in her place." "That was romance--and that _was_ love!" cried Mattie quickly; "for she was not dead, her love was not dead, and you were likely to meet in better faith at any moment unforeseen. Sidney, you _did_ meet--you were affected by her visit, her evidence of the old tie still existent. Why deny this to me, to spare my feelings now! I am living for you and her,--I do not love you, but I am interested in your welfare, and anxious--oh! so anxious, Sid, to advance it." "Harriet Wesden and I met under peculiar circumstances, that must have touched both hearts a little--all was over in an instant, like a lightning-flash, and here's the sober life again!" "You _will_ deceive yourself--until two lives are wholly blighted by your obduracy, you will go on asserting this dreamy theory, and believing in it." "You are a strange girl--stranger and more incomprehensible to me than you have ever been, Mattie," he said wondering. "What can you think of me, that you coolly ask me to sit here and confess to a passion for another, after coming for an answer to a love-suit tendered you. By heaven! it is a mystery, or a dream!" "When I was a little girl, untutored, and run wild, I used to fancy that you two would marry; when we shared the same house together, I saw how fitting you both were for each other--how, in your strength of mind and purpose, one weak woman would always find support and love. When you were engaged, I felt a portion of your happiness, understood that you had chosen well, and knew--knew how proud and happy she must be in your affection! That was _my_ dream--let it in the end come true, for Harriet Wesden's sake, for yours--even for the sake of the woman here at your side, the sister and friend to tell you what is best." "You are very kind, Mattie, but--but I cannot own to anything. It is not fear, not shame--God knows what it is, or what I am, or what I really wish!" he exclaimed irritably. "Leave it to me." "No, for myself, my own battles. I will have no woman's interference, no friend's advice. I will go on to the end my own way." "It is not ordered so. Look there--is this _chance_ which has brought her hither to-day, at this hour?" "Let me go away!" cried Sidney, starting to his feet. Mattie, flushed and excited, caught him by the wrist; he could have wrested himself away from her grasp, but he would have hurt her in the effort, and a something in his own will held him spellbound there.