And her eyes reiterate one little sentence, “You are my lord, my master, and I am your slave.”

It was one of the very strongest cases of love at first sight.  Such cases are more common, however, than people affect to think.

“Come home and dine with us,” says Mr. Hayward, as a distant clock strikes seven.

“I’m afraid I have not time to dress,” replies Philip Vansittart; “that is if you dine at half past seven, as I have heard you say you do.”

“Never mind about dress,” answers Mr. Hayward.  “I won’t dress either.”

He has no designs on his guest, but he is a good-natured gentleman, and he sees that these two are attracted toward each other.

Miss Susan is at church.  If her brother will dine at his usual hour on Sunday, she cannot help it, but she will not countenance him by her presence.

Philip Vansittart thinks he has never spent such a divinely happy evening as this.  Virginia sings to him; her voice thrills to his very soul.  Mr. Hamilton is asleep in the next room.  As for Virginia, when she is alone, she first smiles a happy, triumphant smile, because she knows he loves her, and then she bursts into a passion of tears and sobs until her whole frame is convulsed.  If his mind is really set against marriage, what will become of her!  She feels as though life without him must be one long night of despair.

Philip Vansittart paces his room until the small hours, thinking of this charming, lovable creature, who inspires stronger, deeper sensations in him than he has ever felt before.  He tells himself, without vanity or self-deception, that what he feels for her, with that difference which governs the loves of men and women, she feels for him—­heart has gone out to heart, nay, they are twain halves of a perfect heart.  It is but for him to stretch out his hand to her, and she will come.  Aye! but how can he stretch out his hand?  In the society in which they both move there is but one way in which she can be his—­the way sanctioned by society, blessed by the church.  Society and the church will bless and smile upon any union:  the decrepit old man with the blooming child; the drunkard and adulterer with the pure young girl; the avaricious youth with the doting old woman.  Marriage purifies, sanctifies, hallows sensuality, greed, any, every base motive.  To love as God made you free to love, unfettered, and with a true heart, is a crime; to live together full of hatred, loathing, and revolt, is to perform a sacred duty once you have tied yourself up in church.  This was Vansittart’s theory.  Marriage to him was only another word for satiety, weariness, restraint, tyranny.  He had never seen what he called a happy marriage, though he had observed many which the world crowned with that adjective, and he had sworn a thousand oaths that he would never subject himself to that miserable awakening which inevitably follows the temporary sleep of mind and reason, and the short dream of passion which makes a man bind himself with shackles.