He was her first and only love--the love that leads a girl to see only ideal perfection in the object so beloved. Their passion had been like the diva in of a mid-summer night, and now they were to meet never more--never more! She recalled the words of the song he was wont to sing to air of 'Rousseau's Dream'-- 'See the moon o'er cloudless Jura Shining in the loch below; See the distant mountain towering Like a pyramid of snow. 'Scenes of grandeur, scenes of childhood, Scenes so dear to love and me! When we roam by bower or wild wood, All is lovelier when with _thee_! And, as she touched the piano, his voice seemed to come to her ear again. 'Eveline!' she would murmur, dreamily, 'he called me Eveline--his own--yes, I can hear his voice plainly now--plainly I heard it at Dundargue, and on that last evening at Maviswood.' Then her eye would fall on her wedding-ring, and a kind of shiver passed over her. She strove to read, but that was almost impossible; her mind wandered from the story, or sometimes certain passages struck her painfully. In a novel ('Out of Court') one ran thus:--'she married him; she ceased to love him, and she died, which, on the whole, was a better fortune than generally befalls the women who make this _irretrievable_ stumble on the threshold of life.' 'Oh! would I but die too; but I am too young, and too strong!' she thought bitterly. 'Our hearts choose for us, in spite of us, and I chose Evan.' Bound though she was to a husband beyond her years, uncongenial, and, in some points, unappreciative, she could respect him, but she could never love him; that was impossible. Her love was far away, where the shadows of the Pyramids fell on the sands of Ghizeh, and the pipes of the Black Watch sent up their wild war-notes in the desert of Goshen. She had still the companionship of Olive, who, with her aunt, Lady Aberfeldie, was lingering at Southsea. 'Take care, Eveline,' said the former, warningly, 'lest this useless and hopeless regret for Cameron becomes too apparent to Sir Paget.' 'I cannot help it, however wrong and sinful it may be,' she replied. 'I do my best. I let myself love him from the first moment I met him, and knew that he loved me--loved me well--before the secret escaped him. Many have admired me, but,' she added, simply and sweetly, 'no one ever spoke to me before as Evan spoke, and I gave him all the love of my heart; but to cherish it is, I grant you, hopeless now.' 'Hopeless as mine; for now Allan, I fear, loathes me, if he thinks of me at all,' said Olive. 'I am very tired, Olive,' observed the other girl, 'of trying to compel duty to triumph over sorrow.'