Plans were scattered on the desk at which he sat; some intricate calculations lay immediately before him. He regarded neither. His eyes were looking straight out at the opposite wall, a big chart of some district being there, but he saw it not; nothing but vacancy. Very unusual indeed was it for Robert Hunter the practical to allow his thoughts to stray away in the midst of his work, as they had done now. During the past few months a change had come over his heart. It was of a different nature from that which, some two or three years before, after the death of his wife, had changed himself--changed, as it seemed, his whole nature, and made a man of him. Even now he could not bear to look back upon the idle, simple folly in which his days had been passed; the circumstances that had brought this folly home to his mind, opened his eyes to it, as it were, had no doubt caused him to acquire a very exaggerated view of it; but this did no harm to others, and worked good for himself. With the death of his wife, Robert Hunter had, so to say, put aside the pleasant phase, the ideal view of life, and entered on the hard, the stern, the practical--as he thought for ever. He had not calculated well in this. He forgot that he was still a young and attractive man (though his being attractive or the contrary was not at all to the purpose); he forgot that neither the feelings nor the heart can grow old at will. It might have been very different had his heart received its death-blow; but it was nothing but his conscience; for he had not loved his wife. But of that he was unconscious until lately. Love--real love--the sweet heart's dream that can never but once visit either man or woman, had come stealing over Robert Hunter. Never but once. What says a modern poet? "Few hearts have never loved; but fewer still Have felt a second passion. None a third. The first was living fire; the next, a thrill; The weary heart can never more be stirred: Rely on it, the song has left the bird." Truer words were rarely said or sung. The one only glimpse of Paradise vouchsafed to us on earth--a transitory glimpse at the best--cannot be repeated a second time. When it flies away it flies for ever.