I asked her how the engagement came to be broken off.

She replied that it had not been broken off, but that it had died out in a very mysterious way.

The person to whom she was engaged--her first love, she called him--was very poor, and there was no immediate prospect of their being married.

He followed my profession, and went abroad to study.

They had corresponded regularly until the time when, as she believed, he had returned to England.