'She did not mention that this other lover was richer than Giles and had a title, but of course he found out that this was the case. The fickle Irish beauty had caught the fancy of an elderly English nobleman with a large family of grown-up sons and daughters. My dear, it was a very heartless piece of work: it changed Giles completely. He never spoke about it to any one, but if ever a man was heart-broken, Giles was: he was never the same after that; it made him hard and bitter; he is always railing against women, or saying disagreeable home-truths about them. And of course Mrs. Carrick, or rather Lady Howe, is to blame for that. Oh, my dear, she may deck herself with diamonds, as they say she does, and call herself happy,--which she is not, with a gouty, ill-tempered old husband who is jealous of her,--but I'll be bound she thinks of Giles sometimes with regret, and scorns herself for her folly.' Poor Mr. Hamilton! And this had all happened about six or seven years ago. No wonder he looked stern and said bitter things. He was not naturally sweet-tempered, like Max; such a misfortune would sour him. 'All well,' I said to myself, as I went up to bed, 'it is perfectly true what Longfellow says, "Into each life some rain must fall, some days must be dark and dreary"; but it is strange that they both have suffered. It is a good thing, perhaps, that such an experience is never likely to happen to me. There is some consolation to be deduced even from my want of beauty: no man will fall in love with me and then play me false.' And with that a curious feeling came over me, a sudden inexplicable sense of want and loneliness, something I could not define, that took no definite shape and had no similitude, and yet haunted me with a sense of ill; but the next moment I was struggling fiercely with the unknown and unwelcome guest. 'For shame!' I said to myself; 'this is weakness and pure selfishness, mere sentimental feverishness; this is not like the strong-minded young person Miss Darrell calls me. What if loneliness be appointed me?--we must each have our cross. Perhaps, as life goes on and I grow older, it may be a little hard to bear at times, but my loneliness would be better than the sort of pain Mr. Hamilton and Max have endured.' And as I thought this, a sudden conviction came to me that I could not have borne a like fate, a dim instinct that told me that I should suffer keenly and long,--that it would be better, far better, that the deepest instincts of my woman's nature should never be roused than be kindled only to die away into ashes, as many women's affections have been suffered to die. 'Anything but that,' I said to myself, with a sudden thrill of pain that surprised me with its intensity. All this time through the long cold weeks Elspeth had been slowly dying. Quietly and gradually the blind woman's strength had ebbed and lessened, until early in March we knew she could not last much longer.