Fancy's enchanted palace had been shattered into a heap of shapeless ruin by those accidental scraps of hard worldly wisdom with which Valentine had pelted the fairy fabric.

He a man to love, or to marry for love! Why, he talked like some hardened world-weary sinner who had done with every human emotion.

The girl shuddered as she heard him.

She had loved him, and believed in his love.

She had fancied a tender meaning in the voice which softened when it spoke to her, a pensive earnestness in the dark eyes which looked at her; but just when the voice had seemed softest and sweetest, the pensive eyes most eloquently earnest, the adventurer's manner had changed all at once, and for ever.