In our country, and perhaps, though in a less degree, in all other highly artificial states, enthusiasm or even feeling of any kind is ridiculous; and I could not endure the thought that my treasured and secret affections should be dragged from their retreat to be cavilled and carped at by-- "Every beardless, vain comparative." This weakness brought on the catastrophe of my love; for, mark me, Clarence, it is through our weaknesses that our vices are punished! One night I went to a masquerade; and, while I was sitting in a remote corner, three of my acquaintances, whom I recognized, though they knew it not, approached and rallied me upon my romantic attachment to Lady Merton.

One of them was a woman of a malicious and sarcastic wit; the other two were men whom I disliked, because their pretensions interfered with mine; they were diners-out and anecdote-mongers.

Stung to the quick by their sarcasms and laughter, I replied in a train of mingled arrogance and jest; at last I spoke slightingly of the person in question; and these profane and false lips dared not only to disown the faintest love to that being who was more to me than all on earth, but even to speak of herself with ridicule and her affection with disdain.
In the midst of this, I turned and beheld, within hearing, a figure which I knew upon the moment.

O Heaven! the burning shame and agony of that glance! It raised its mask--I saw that blanched cheek, and that trembling lip! I knew that the iron had indeed entered into her soul.
Clarence, I never beheld her again alive.

Within a week from that time she was a corpse.