Beautiful she was, glorious, lovable, but not the helpmeet whom he needed.

And he fought against the new dream like a brave man.
He fasted, he wept, he prayed: but his prayers seemed not to be heard.
Valencia seemed to have enthroned herself, a true Venus victrix, in the centre of his heart, and would not be dispossessed.

He tried to avoid seeing her: but even for that he had not strength: more miserable each time, as fierce against himself and his own weakness as if he had given way to wine or to oaths.

In vain, too, he represented to himself the ridiculous hopelessness of his passion; the impossibility of the London beauty ever stooping to marry the poor country curate.

Fancies would come in, how such things, strange as they might seem, had happened already; might happen again.