but given in, when Durant’s letter telling him of the disappearance of Nancy came suddenly into his life like a thunderbolt. He had thought as little about Nancy as possible, poor fellow! She was living the life she had chosen to live under the protection of her parents in the home she preferred. Arthur knew the half-savage reserve and purity of the girl too well to have any doubt of her honour to him. It was not that she could transfer her heart to another; but that she had no heart at all so far as he was concerned; not that she was unfaithful in love, but that she could live without love. He had written to her without eliciting any answer at first; then he had ceased to write; he had heard nothing of her for about eighteen months, except that her money was paid; not a sign of her had come to him in all that time. His heart had gone through all the stages of longing, of waiting, of dire anxiety, of lingering hope against hope. And then he had turned resolutely away from the ungrateful one. He never mentioned so much as her name to anyone, he gave up his correspondence with Durant, he dropped this past of his in that grave of obscurity into which so many men cast, one after another, in broken pieces, the lives they have thrown away. It was not his fault, or at least it was very far from being all his fault that these chances of life had been thrown away; but now let them go and let no one attempt to make any wail over them. She was well off, among the people she liked best, well cared for, cherished as she chose to be cherished, though not as he would have cherished her. Let her be. She was his, but she was not for him, nor could anyone else be for him. She had desolated the life which he had consecrated to her. Henceforward there was a blank in it which she would not, and which no one else could fill. The legitimate ties, the purer hopes were over. But there were other solaces more cheaply to be had--if he could have persuaded himself to accept those husks which the swine eat; and to these last degrading feasts he was making up his mind.