And from that evening a kind of silence fell between them,--they were separated as by an ice-floe.

They met often in the social round, but scarcely spoke more than the ordinary words of conventional civility, and Morgana apparently gave herself up to frivolity, coquetting with her numerous admirers and would-be husbands in a casual, not to say heartless, manner which provoked Seaton past endurance,--so much so that he worked himself up to a kind of cynical detestation and contempt for her, both as a student of science and a woman of wealth.

And yet--and yet--he had almost loved her! And a thing that goaded him to the quick was that so far as scientific knowledge and attainment were concerned she was more than his equal.

Irritated by his own quarrelsome set of sentiments which pulled him first this way and then that, he decided that the only thing possible for him was to put a "great divide" of distance between himself and her.

This he had done--and to what purpose?
Apparently merely to excite her ridicule!--and to prick her humor up to the mischievous prank of finding out where he had fled and following him! And she--even she--who had kept him aloof ever since that fatal moment on the seashore,--had discovered him on this lonely hill-side, and had taunted him with her light mockery--and actually said that "to kiss him would be like kissing a bunch of nettles!"-- SHE said that!--she who for one wild moment he had held in his arms--bah!--he sprang up from his chair in a kind of rage with himself, as his thoughts crowded thick and fast one on the other--why did he think of her at all! It was as if some external commanding force compelled him to do so.