"Should I be justified," he asked himself, "in the steps I am proposing, without further proofs of Adeline's inconstancy? My surmises perhaps have ground sufficient, but something more than surmise is due to her. It is true, I am told I shall never be happy with her," (and he shuddered as he repeated the words to himself); "but I very much doubt if ever I can be happy without her. My own conduct, too, lately--what has it been? Has it not carried with it proofs of coldness and neglect? Why should I expect to receive that constant and ardent devotion, which I have shewed no anxiety to retain; and what, on my part, has occasioned this passive indifference? Has it not been a growing partiality for the society of another--and was _this_ Adeline's fault?" He dwelt on this idea for some moments, and his self-reproaches were painful. Then again he thought, allowing that all is as it was between us, that she loves me in _her_ way, and I her in mine, is that enough to constitute lasting happiness? "_No, it is not._ I should loathe the insipid homage of daily duties pointedly fulfilled, and weary of a mind which had not sufficient energy to think for itself. If I saw that my wife did not enter, from a similarity of tastes, into my occupations and pursuits, I should feel no satisfaction in her doing so to oblige me; and I certainly have already observed, that Adeline's habits, and even her principles, have led her to a life of monotonous tranquillity and insipid cares." And here again Lady Hamlet Vernon's words recurred to him with tremendous power. Would it not then, after all, be more noble to set her free from an engagement, which would fail in producing the happiness that they both had been led to expect? He mused with painful intensity as his thoughts rested on this idea; but in the exercise of analyzing, comparing, and combining these various views of his situation, his mind was imperceptibly drawn to the single subject productive of them--his early attachment to Adeline; and he fell into a comparatively calm reverie--that species of calm, which dwelling upon _one_ feeling generally produces, after the mind has been tossed about in various contending conflicts. His youthful and first affections, together with all the awakening recollections of early tenderness--the development of their mutual passion, ere yet they knew they were destined for each other--the happy prospect of bliss which had succeeded--all, all recurred to him, and revived the dying glow of attachment in his breast. He took out her picture from his writing-desk--gazed at the well-known features, yet thought he had never before been aware of their full and perfect charm, that union of intelligence with purity which is supposed to constitute the being of an angel, that perfect candour, mingled with quick perception, which this portrait conveyed, and conveyed but feebly in comparison with the original,--set the seal to his conviction, that no one could prove to him