"I returned to America, wrought up to the verge of a nervous fever; and, by mingling in amusements of every kind, tried to forget her. In six or eight months I had partially succeeded. My health was not good, and I had made a journey of a few weeks to the west; when, on returning,--it was a sultry July afternoon,--I remember it as if it were yesterday,--sitting in the reading room window of the New York Hotel, I saw her passing down Broadway in an open carriage; and, with the sight, my passion awoke again at fever heat. She had left the Spaniard, and come to America with a New York gentleman, who had lived for some time in Paris. I had an interview with her, and she promised to join me again; but she broke her word. She saw at once what a power she still held over me; and she has used it most mercilessly ever since. She practises all her arts on me, as if I were a new lover, whom she wished to insnare. Sometimes she flatters me; sometimes she repels me; now and then she allows me stolen interviews, or long walks or rides with her. She plays me as an angler plays a salmon that he has hooked, till he brings him gasping to his death. I have plunged into dissipations of all kinds, to drown the memory of her. It is all useless. She knows the torments I am suffering, and she rejoices in them. Perhaps she remembers that it was I who made her what she is, and takes this for her revenge. But, pshaw!--if I had not eloped with her, some one else would have done so soon; and that she perfectly well knows. It is her vanity--nothing but her vanity: she delights to hold me in bondage; she knows that I am her slave, and she glories in it." "But why, in Heaven's name," demanded Morton, "do you not break away from this miserable fascination?" "There it is!" Buckland answered; "I only wish that I had the power. I have resolved twenty times to leave New York, and my resolution has failed me as often." "Who takes charge of her now?" "Colonel ----. He seems as crazy after her as I was." "I can hardly comprehend," pursued Morton, "how, understanding her character as you do, you can still remain so infatuated with her." "Neither can I comprehend it. I can only feel it. Strange--is it not?--that I, who used to be regarded as a mere flirt; who, as a lady acquaintance once told me, had a great deal too much sentiment, but no heart at all; I, who, in my time, have written love verses to twenty different ladies,--should be so enchained at last by this black-eyed witch!" "Very strange." "And now what would you recommend? what advice do you give me? You see in what a predicament I stand. What ought I to do?" "With your broken health and weakened nerves," said Morton, "it is useless for you to attempt contending against this fancy that has taken possession of you. You must run away from it. Take a long voyage; the longer the better. I will go with you to engage your passage to-morrow."