Evadne rose also with a heavy sigh. "I know how you feel," she said to Edith drearily. "You glow and are glad from morning till night. You have a great yearning here," she clasped her hands to her breast. "You find a new delight in music, a new beauty in flowers; unaccountable joy in the warmth and brightness of the sun, and rapture not to be contained in the quiet moonlight. You despise yourself, and think your lover worthy of adoration. The consciousness of him never leaves you even in your sleep. He is your last thought at night, your first in the morning. Even when he is away from you, you do not feel separated from him as you do from other people, for a sense of his presence remains with you, and you flatter yourself that your spirits mingle when your bodies are apart. You think, too, that the source of all this ecstasy is holy because it is pleasurable; you imagine it will last forever!" Edith stared at her. That Evadne should know the entrancement of love herself so exactly, and not reverence it as holy, amazed her. "And you call it love," Evadne added, as if she had read her thought; "but it is not love. The threshold of love and hate adjoin, and it--this feeling--stands midway between them, an introduction to either. It is always a question, as marriages are now made, whether, when passion has had time to cool, husband and wife will love or detest each other. But what is the use of talking?" she exclaimed. "You will not heed me. It is too late now." She turned and walked toward the door; but Edith caught her by the arm and stopped her. "Evadne! Do not go like this!" she entreated, with a sob in her voice. "Wish me well at least!" "I _do_ wish you well," said Evadne. "With what other motive could I have said so much? But I ask again, what is the use? Your parents are content to let you marry a man of whose private life they have no knowledge whatever--" Mrs. Beale interrupted her: "This is not quite the case," she confessed. "We _do_ know that there have been errors; but all that is over now, and it would be wicked of us not to believe the best, and hope for the best. A young man in his position has great temptations--" "And if he succumbs, he is pardoned because of his position!" "Oh, come, now, Evadne!" Mrs. Beale remonstrated, "You cannot think that such a consideration affects our decision. His position and property are very nice in themselves, and indeed all that we care about in that way for Edith, but we were not thinking about either when we gave our consent. It is the dear fellow himself that we want--" "I can make him all that he ought to be! I know I can!" Edith exclaimed fervently, clasping her hands, and looking up, with bright eyes full of confidence and passion. Evadne said not another word, but kissed them both, and left the house. "Mother! how strange Evadne is!" Edith ejaculated.