"And you, Mr. Maltravers," turning quickly round--"you--have you
friends? Do you feel that there are, I do not say public, but private
affections and duties, for which life is made less a possession than a
trust?"

"Lady Florence--no!--I have friends, it is true, and Cleveland is of the
nearest; but the life within life--the second self, in whom we vest the
right and mastery over our own being--I know it not. But is it," he
added, after a pause, "a rare privation? Perhaps it is a happy one. I
have learned to lean on my own soul, and not look elsewhere for the
reeds that a wind can break."

"Ah, it is a cold philosophy--you may reconcile yourself to its wisdom
in the world, in the hum and shock of men; but in solitude, with
Nature--ah, no! While the mind alone is occupied, you may be contented
with the pride of stoicism; but there are moments when the /heart/
wakens as from a sleep--wakens like a frightened child--to feel itself
alone and in the dark."

Ernest was silent, and Florence continued, in an altered voice: "This is
a strange conversation--and you must think me indeed a wild,
romance-reading person, as the world is apt to call me. But if I
live--I--pshaw!--life denies ambition to women."

"If a woman like you, Lady Florence, should ever love, it will be one in
whose career you may perhaps find that noblest of all ambitions--the
ambition women only feel--the ambition for another!"

"Ah! but I shall never love," said Lady Florence, and her cheek grew
pale as the starlight shone on it; "still, perhaps," she added quickly,