“I care for you only as a friend. I told you I had outlived all my illusions, just as positively as you had, when after a few months of marriage you were wholly drawn to Ella. Let us preserve our mutual regard by the utmost candor. We cannot deceive each other, and any attempt to do so is an outrage upon truth and honesty. There is nothing left of our mutual passion but a cold and bare skeleton, which we can never clothe with the flesh and fire of life, do what we will. I would not see you humiliate yourself;” and not wishing for a reply, she turned quickly and left him. He stood gazing after her as if dazed. At last he knew beyond question that this woman was beyond his reach. He had once called her love a “suffocating warmth,” but even now, he could not see how far she was above him, through her fervid sentiment of the passion of love, and her grander idealization of its object, which had made her faithful, not from any sense of duty or consistency, but from necessity. To him, love was a luxury like rare wine, which might be substituted, when wanting, by an ordinary quality. To Clara, love was her religion—the one necessity of her higher life; and when its object failed, her imagination constructed an ideal upon which her exuberant fondness lavished itself in thought, for she never dreamed of the folly of common souls, who satisfy the heart with stones when it asks for bread. The next morning Dr. Delano breakfasted in his room, and Clara and Miss Charlotte had a long confidential talk over their coffee in the luxuriant morning-room of the latter. Clara told her friend of the scene between her and Albert. “I have long given up hoping for a reconciliation,” said Charlotte, “though it would be a great comfort to me. When he marries Ella, I shall quit the house, though where I shall go is uncertain. Maybe,” she added, smiling, “I shall yet go to live in that Oakdale Social Palace. Nothing would irritate Albert so much, for he hates the count, though it would be difficult to say why. I have always been deeply attached to him. He is the most honorable man toward women I have ever met, and the charm in his friendship is, that he never misunderstands you. This is why his friendship is better than the love of ordinary men.” During the conversation Clara asked her if she thought Ella really loved Albert.