"Indeed?" I answered; "your candour is too charming to require excuses. You must believe that such ingenuousness is very refreshing to one who, like myself, has wasted the best part of his days amid sophisticated and conventional society, where truth is never possible because it must always be offensive." "Don't you find it dull at Elmore Court?" "No; I spend the greater portion of my time in reading. Besides, I have a companion--a gentleman accomplished enough to be of great use to me in my studies." "You are a young man," she said, eyeing me intently, "and it is unusual for young men to banish themselves from life and its pleasures, especially if they have money." "I admire your incredulity," I answered, laughing, "for it gives me an excuse to tell you more of myself than I could otherwise have done. I mean, that a voluntary confession would have smacked rather egotistic." She left her chair and began to pace up and down the room. I was fascinated by her form, the beautiful curve of her breast, the proportioned waist, her erect stature, and the unconscious grace of her movements. When her face was towards me her eyes were invariably on mine; there was in them an unsmiling sparkle, a grave glow, that gave unreality to their gaze, a spectral beauty to their depths. "I took Elmore Court," I continued, "not because I was tired of, but because I wanted to enjoy, life." "You thought that abstinence would create appetite?" "I wished to learn the art of living; and this, I saw, was only to be accomplished by study, by thought, and by awakening aspirations which should be lofty enough to make their achievement laborious." "What do you hope to do?" "Much." "You will do little. Ah! you think I mean that you have no talent? I have not said so. How should I know your gifts and deficiencies? But life itself is one huge disappointment. The more laborious the effort the more dreadful the failure. Pray don't fancy I think only of books, or art, or science. I know nothing of these things; and they make but a very small portion of life. I have the passions in my mind--love, hope, patience and the like--all these things end in regret." "Your logic is very dispiriting," said I, watching her with increasing admiration. "It would leave life nerveless, and make death its only aspiration." "Do you think life ends in death?" "The life of the flesh, certainly." "The flesh has nothing to do with life. It is the spirit that lives. My flesh might have been dead last night when you saw me: for I heard and felt nothing. No! it was all as blank to me as my sight when I shut my eyes so;" she closed her eyes like a child would have done. "I might have been dead, and to myself was as dead as ever I shall be when I am in the grave." I was about to speak, when she suddenly said, "Mr. Thorburn, you are making a long call."