That girl--then a mere girl--refused me, as perhaps you know; and when, heated with wine and irritated with rejection, I pressed the point rather too warmly, she treated me with contempt and withdrew from the apartment.

This youth is the favored, the successful rival.

Look upon this picture, Walter--now, while the moon streams through the branches upon it--and wonder not that it maddened, and still maddens me, to think that, for his smooth face and aristocratic airs of superiority, I was to be sacrificed and despised.

She was probably a year younger than himself; but I saw at the time, though both of them appeared unconscious of the fact, that she loved him then.

What with her rejection and scorn, coming at the same time with my election defeat, I am what I am.