He had acknowledged that she was beautiful; he had owned to her often how much he admired her. So much granted, was it impossible that he should learn to love her? She told herself that she would take courage--that she would persevere--that her great love must in time prevail, and that she would devote her life unweariedly to it. She would carefully hide all traces of pique or annoyance. She would never let him find her dull or unhappy. Men liked to be amused. She would do her best to entertain him; he would never have a moment's vacancy in her society. She would find sparkling anecdotes, repartees, witty, humorous stories, to amuse him. He liked her singing; she would cultivate it more and more. She would study him, dress for him, live for him, and him alone; she would have no other end, aim, thought, or desire. She would herself be the source of all his amusement, so that he should look for the every-day pleasures of his life to her--and, such being the case, she would win him; she felt sure of it. Why had she been so hopeless, so despairing? There was no real cause for it. Perhaps, after all, he had looked upon the whole affair, not as a solemn engagement, but as a childish farce. Perhaps he had never really thought of her as his wife; but there would be an end to that thoughtlessness now. What had passed on the previous day would arouse his attention, he could never know the same indifference again. So she rose with renewed hope. She shrank from the look of her face in the glass. "Cold water and fresh air," she said to herself, with a smile, "will soon remedy such paleness." And thus on that very day began for her the new life--the life in which, no longer sure of her love, she was to try to win it. He would have loved her had he been able; but his own words were true--"Love is fate." There was nothing in common between them--no sympathy--none of those mystical cords that, once touched, set two human hearts throbbing, and never rest until they are one. He could not have been fonder of her than he was, in a brotherly sense; but as for lover's love, from the first day he had seen her, a beautiful, dark-eyed child, until the last he had never felt the least semblance of it. It was a story of failure. She strove as perhaps woman never before had striven, and she succeeded in winning his truest admiration, his warmest friendship; he felt more at home with her than any one else in the wide world. But there it ended--she won no more. It was not his fault; it was simply because the electric spark called love had never been and never could be elicited between his soul and hers. He would have done anything for her--he was her truest, best friend; but he was not her lover.