IN a few days Clara was well enough to leave her room, and was soon entirely recovered from her sudden illness.

That little matter of the heart had been settled within three minutes of their meeting, and they were now as happy as lovers usually are under such favorable circumstances.
When Edwin Florence went back to New York, it was with a sense of interior pleasure more perfect than he had experienced for years; and this would have remained, could he have shut out the past; or, so much of it as came like an unwelcome intruder.

But, alas! this was not to be.

Even while he was bending, in spirit, over the beautiful image of his last beloved, there would come between his eyes and that image a pale sad face, in which reproof was stronger than affection, It was all in vain that he sought to turn from that face.

For a time it would remain present, and then fade slowly away, leaving his heart oppressed.
"Is it to be ever thus!" he would exclaim, in these seasons of darkness.