"She was not only beautiful, she was gifted with the sweetest voice I ever heard," he continued. "She sang, and I was enraptured. I sought and obtained an introduction to my divinity. Before we parted that evening my heart was irrevocably lost to sweet Elaine Brooke." Heavy sighs rippled over his lips as he paused and seemed to contemplate in fancy the fair, flower-face, so long ago lost out of his life. "That was not the last time we met," he continued. "Both loved, although it seemed indeed a mad, hopeless passion. I was destined to Lilia Lessington, and Elaine's ambitious mother intended to make a pedant of her daughter. She was destined to several years at Vassar College. Young blood flows hastily, you know, Mrs. Leslie," with a sad smile. "The hopelessness of my love maddened me. I persuaded my darling to elope with me to a distant city, where we were married." "All for love, and the world well-lost," Mrs. Leslie quoted. "Well-lost, indeed, if only _she_ had been true," Clarence Stuart answered, with one of those long, labored sighs, that seem to cleave a strong man's heart in twain. He was silent a few moments then, watching with gloomy eyes the softly lapsing river, on which the haze of twilight began to fall-- "So life runs away," he said, sadly. "Wave by wave, in sunshine or shadow. Ah! my old friend, the stream of my life has flowed for more than sixteen years in the shadow of a great sorrow. Only a few months of happiness were granted me with my beautiful bride." "She was false, you said?" murmured Mrs. Leslie, sympathetically. "False," he echoed. "'Falser than all fancy fathoms, Falser than all songs have sung, Puppet to a father's threat, And servile to a shrewish tongue.' "I have said that a few months only of happiness were granted me," he continued, after a moment's pause. "In a distant city, our whereabouts and our fate a mystery to all our relatives, we spent a few months of blind, delirious happiness, forgetting all save each other. Never was bride more wildly worshiped than I worshiped my beautiful Elaine; never was husband more adored than she seemed to adore me. We lived but for each other. "To this sweet idyl, this beautiful romance, came a most prosaic ending. "The considerable sum of money with which I had left home was quite exhausted by our idle, happy, luxurious life. I was forced to leave my wife for a short time, and go home, like the prodigal, to my father's house, confess my marriage, and entreat his forgiveness and assistance. "There were hard words and a stormy scene at first. I had expected as much; for I was well aware of his ambitious plans for me. But at last, as I was about leaving his roof in anger, he relented. He gave me his paternal forgiveness, and promised to receive my wife as a daughter. It was arranged that I should leave early the next morning to bring Elaine home. Perhaps you can fancy my happiness, Mrs. Leslie."