Ah me! were the whole world what an ardent lover prays for his mistress, there were no need of death to enjoy the bliss of heaven.
What could he say?
what do?
how find words to speak the measured feelings of a friend?
how control the beatings of his heart, the passion of his soul, that no sign should escape to wound or offend her?
She had bade him to silence: was he sufficiently master of himself to strike the lighter keys without sounding some deep chords that would jar upon her ear?
He tried to picture the scene of their second meeting.

He repeated again and again her formal title, Miss Ercildoune, that he might familiarize his tongue and his ear to the sound, and not be on the instant betrayed into calling the name which he so often uttered in his thoughts.

He said over some civil, kindly words of greeting, and endeavored to call up, and arrange in order, a theme upon which he should converse.

"I shall not dare to be silent," he thought, "for if I am, my silence will tell the tale; and if that do not, she will hear it from the throbbings of my heart.

I don't know though,"-- he laughed a little, as he spoke aloud,--bitterly it would have been, had his voice been capable of bitterness,--"perhaps she will think the organism of the poor thing has become diseased in camp and fightings,"-- putting his hand up to his throat and holding the swollen veins, where the blood was beating furiously.
Presently he went down stairs and out to the street, in pursuit of some cut flowers which he found in a little cellar, a stone's throw from his hotel,--a fresh, damp little cellar, which smelt, he could not help thinking, like a grave.