could assume with astonishing facility a hundred different attitudes on the same question, and acted the penitent, the indifferent, the defiant, with such a perfection of art as really to deceive herself.  And in spite of all this, poor Storm soon found that she had wound herself so closely about his heart, that the process of unwinding, as he expressed it, would require greater strength and a sterner philosophy than he believed himself to possess.  He had always been shy of women, not because he distrusted them, but because he was painfully conscious of being, in point of physical finish, a second-rate article, a bungling piece of work, and naturally felt his disadvantages more keenly in the presence of those upon whom Nature had expended all her best art.  He was, according to his own assertion, an idealist by temperament, and had kept a sacred chamber in his heart where the vestal fire burned with a pure flame.  Now the deepest strata of his being were stirred, and he loved with an overwhelming fervor and intensity which fairly frightened him.  In a moment of abject despair he proposed to Emily, and to his surprise was accepted.  And what was more, it was no comedy on her part; he even now believed that she really loved him.  All the turbulent forces of her being were toned down to a beautiful, womanly tenderness.  She clung to him with a passionate devotion which seemed to be no less of a surprise to herself than it was to him—­clung to his stronger self, perhaps, as a refuge from her own waywardness, listened with a sweet, shame-faced happiness to his bright plans for their common future, and shared his pleasures and his light disappointments with an ardor and an ever ready sympathy, as if her whole previous life had been an education for this one end—­to be a perfect wife and to be his wife.

But alas, their happiness was of brief duration.  At the end of a year he had finished his legal studies, and passed a brilliant examination.  An excellent situation was obtained for him in a small town on the sea-coast, whither he removed and began to prepare for the foundation of his home.  It was here he contracted his taste for quaint furniture, all that was now left to him of his happiness—­nay, of his life.  Suddenly, at the end of eight months, she ceased writing to him—­a fact which after all, argued well for her sincerity; full of apprehension, he hastened to the capital and found her engaged to a young lieutenant,—­a dashing, hare-brained fellow, covered all over with gilt embroidery, undeniably handsome, but otherwise of very little worth.  At least that was Storm’s impression of him; he may have done him injustice, he added, with his usual conscientiousness.  A man who sees the whole structure of his life tumbling down over his head is not apt to take a charitable view of the author of the ruin.  A week later, Storm was on his way to America,—­that was the end of the story.

Yes, if my friend had died, according to his promise, the story would have ended here; but, as for once, he broke his word, I am obliged to add the sequel.  I noticed that for some time after his recovery he kept shy of me.  As he afterward plainly told me, he felt as if I had purloined a piece of his most precious private property, in sharing a grief which had hitherto been his own exclusive treasure.