I loved her. I adored her with all the strength of my being, and I knew that without her my life, in the future must only be an aimless blank. In the sweetest natures there can be no completeness and consistency without moral energy, and that Mabel possessed it was plainly shown. In her confidences with me as we traversed the Park and Kensington Gardens she had shown, with the most perfect artfulness, that she had that instinctive unconscious address of her sex which always renders a woman doubly charming. Persons who unite great sensibility and lively fancy possess unconsciously the power of placing themselves in the position of another and imagining rather than perceiving what is in their hearts. A few women possess this faculty, but men never. It is not inconsistent with extreme simplicity of character, and quite distinct from that kind of art which is the result of natural acuteness and habits of observation--quick to perceive the foibles of others, and as quick to turn them to its own purpose; which is always conscious of itself, and if united with strong intellect, seldom perceptible to others. In her chat with me she had no design formed or conclusion previously drawn, but her intuitive quickness of feeling, added to her imagination, caused her to half-confide in me her deep sorrow. Her compassionate disposition, her exceeding gentleness, which gave the prevailing tone to her character, her modesty, her tenderness, her grace, her almost ethereal refinement and delicacy, all showed a true poetic nature within, while her dark, fathomless eyes betrayed that energy of passion which gave her character its concentrated power. Was it any wonder, even though she might have been betrayed into a momentary tergiversation, that I bowed down and worshipped her? She was my ideal; her personal beauty and the tender sweetness of her character were alike perfect. Therefore my love for her was a passion--that headlong vehemence, that fluttering and hope, fear and transport, that giddy intoxication of heart and sense which belongs to the novelty of true love which we feel once, and but once, in our lives. Yet I was held perplexed and powerless by her unexpected and unacknowledged identification of that clue to the unknown dead. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. A REVELATION. Although many days passed, no word of apology came from my mysterious correspondent for not having kept the appointment. I watched every post for nearly a fortnight, and as I received no explanation, my suspicion regarding Mabel's connexion with the strange affair became, of course, strengthened.