And with this revelation of her own altered heart, came the clearer and fresher insight into the nature and character of the man she loved. Hitherto she had recognised but his virtues--now she beheld his failings! beholding them as if virtues, loved him more; and, loving him, more despaired. She recognised that all-pervading indomitable pride, which, interwoven with his sense of honour, became relentless as it was unrevengeful. She comprehended now that, the more he loved her, the less he would forgive; and, recalling the unexpected gentleness of his farewell words, she felt that in his promised blessing lay the sentence that annihilated every hope. CHAPTER III. WHATEVER THE NUMBER OF A MAN'S FRIENDS, THERE WILL BE TIMES IN HIS LIFE WHEN HE HAS ONE TOO FEW; BUT IF HE HAS ONLY ONE ENEMY, HE IS LUCKY INDEED IF HE HAS NOT ONE TOO MANY. A cold night; sharp frost; winter set in. The shutters are closed, the curtains drawn, the fire burns clear, and the lights are softly shaded in Alban Morley's drawing-room. The old bachelor is at home again. He had returned that day; sent to Lionel to come to him; and Lionel had already told him what had transpired in his absence--from the identification of Waife with William Losely, to Lady Montfort's visit to Fawley, which had taken place two days before, and of which she had informed Lionel by a few hasty lines, stating her inability to soften Mr. Darrell's objections to the alliance between Lionel and Sophy; severely blaming herself that those objections had not more forcibly presented themselves to her own mind, and concluding with expressions of sympathy, and appeals to fortitude, in which, however brief, the exquisite kindness of her nature so diffused its charm, that the soft words soothed insensibly, like those sounds which in Nature itself do soothe us we know not why. The poor Colonel found himself in the midst of painful subjects. Though he had no very keen sympathy for the sorrows of lovers, and no credulous faith in everlasting attachments, Lionel's portraiture of the young girl, who formed so mysterious a link between the two men who, in varying ways, had touched the finest springs in his own heart, compelled a compassionate and chivalrous interest, and he was deeply impressed by the quiet of Lionel's dejection. The young man uttered no complaints of the inflexibility with which Darrell had destroyed his elysium. He bowed to the will with which it was in vain to argue, and which it would have been a criminal ingratitude to defy. But his youth seemed withered up; down- eyed and listless, he sank into that stupor of despondency which so drearily simulates the calm of resignation.