Springrove had made its appearance in Cytherea's bosom with all the
fascinating attributes of a first experience, not succeeding to or
displacing other emotions, as in older hearts, but taking up
entirely new ground; as when gazing just after sunset at the pale
blue sky we see a star come into existence where nothing was before.

His parting words, 'Don't forget me,' she repeated to herself a
hundred times, and though she thought their import was probably
commonplace, she could not help toying with them,--looking at them
from all points, and investing them with meanings of love and
faithfulness,--ostensibly entertaining such meanings only as fables
wherewith to pass the time, yet in her heart admitting, for detached
instants, a possibility of their deeper truth. And thus, for hours
after he had left her, her reason flirted with her fancy as a kitten
will sport with a dove, pleasantly and smoothly through easy
attitudes, but disclosing its cruel and unyielding nature at crises.

To turn now to the more material media through which this story
moves, it so happened that the very next morning brought round a
circumstance which, slight in itself, took up a relevant and
important position between the past and the future of the persons
herein concerned.

At breakfast time, just as Cytherea had again seen the postman pass
without bringing her an answer to the advertisement, as she had
fully expected he would do, Owen entered the room.

'Well,' he said, kissing her, 'you have not been alarmed, of course.
Springrove told you what I had done, and you found there was no
train?'