The sudden withdrawal of what was superfluous at first, is often
felt as an essential loss. It was felt now with regard to the
maiden. More, too, after a meeting so pleasant and so enkindling,
she had seemed to imply that they would never come together again.

The young man softly followed her, stood opposite the house and
watched her come into the upper room with the light. Presently his
gaze was cut short by her approaching the window and pulling down
the blind--Edward dwelling upon her vanishing figure with a hopeless
sense of loss akin to that which Adam is said by logicians to have
felt when he first saw the sun set, and thought, in his
inexperience, that it would return no more.

He waited till her shadow had twice crossed the window, when,
finding the charming outline was not to be expected again, he left
the street, crossed the harbour-bridge, and entered his own solitary
chamber on the other side, vaguely thinking as he went (for
undefined reasons),

'One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother.'



III. THE EVENTS OF EIGHT DAYS

1. FROM THE TWENTY-SECOND TO THE TWENTY-SEVENTH OF JULY

But things are not what they seem. A responsive love for Edward