What! I favoured where you love?
Is it possible?
It might teach the vainest to forswear vanity.

You, the young, the buoyant, the fresh, the beautiful ?--And I, who have passed the glory and zest of life between dusty walls; I who--well, well, fate laughs at probabilities!" Aram now seemed relapsing into one of his more abstracted moods; he ceased to speak aloud, but his lips moved, and his eyes grew fixed in reverie on the ground.

Walter gazed at him for some moments with mixed and contending sensations.

Once more, resentment and the bitter wrath of jealousy had faded back into the remoter depths of his mind, and a certain interest for his singular rival, despite of himself, crept into his breast.

But this mysterious and fitful nature, was it one in which the devoted Madeline would certainly find happiness and repose ?--would she never regret her choice?
This question obtruded itself upon him, and while he sought to answer it, Aram, regaining his composure, turned abruptly and offered him his hand.