When Mildred saw him in this state of mental desolation, she would shake her head and sigh, for it told her that she was as far as ever from the golden gate of her Eldorado.  As has been said, hers was the strongest will, and, even if he had not willed it, she could have married him any day she wished; but, odd as it may seem, she was too conscientious.  She had determined that she would not marry him unless she was certain that he loved her, and to this resolution, as yet, she firmly held.  Whatever her faults may have been, Mildred Carr had all the noble unselfishness that is so common in her sex.  For herself and her own reputation she cared, comparatively speaking, nothing; whilst for Arthur’s ultimate happiness she was very solicitous.

One evening—­it was one of Arthur’s black days, when he had got a fit of what Mildred called “Angela fever”—­they were walking together in the garden, Arthur in silence, with his hands in his pockets and his pipe in his mouth, and Mildred humming a little tune by way of amusing herself, when they came to the wall that edged the precipice.  Arthur leant over it and gazed at the depths below.

“Don’t, dear, you will tumble over,” said Mildred, in some alarm.

“I think it would be a good thing if I did,” he answered, moodily.

“Are you, then, so tired of the world—­and me?”

“No, dear, I am not tired of you; forgive me, Mildred, but I am dreadfully miserable.  I know that it is very ungracious and ungrateful of me, but it is the fact.”

“You are thinking of her again, Arthur?”

“Yes, I have got a fit of it.  I suppose that she has not been out of my mind for an hour altogether during the last forty-eight hours.  Talk of being haunted by a dead person, it is infinitely worse being haunted by a living one.”

“I am very sorry for you, dear.”

“Do you suppose, Mildred, that this will go on for all my life, that I shall always be at the mercy of these bitter memories and thoughts?”

“I don’t know, Arthur.  I hope not.”

“I wish I were dead—­I wish I were dead,” he broke out, passionately.  “She has destroyed my life, all that was happy in me is dead, only my body lives on.  I am sure I don’t know, Mildred, how you can care for anything so worthless.”

She kissed him, and answered,

“Dearest, I had rather love you as you are than any other man alive.  Time does wonders; perhaps in time you will get over it.  Oh!  Arthur, when I think of what she has made you, and what you might have been if you had never known her, I long to tell that woman all my mind.  But you must be a man, dear; it is weak to give way to a mad passion, such as this is now.  Try to think of something else; work at something.”

“I have no heart for it, Mildred, I don’t feel as though I could work; and, if you cannot make me forget, I am sure I do not know what will.”

Mildred sighed, and did not answer.  Though she spoke hopefully about it to him, she had little faith in his getting over his passion for Angela now.  Either she must marry him as he was, or else let him go altogether; but which?  The struggle between her affection and her idea of duty was very sore, and as yet she could come to no conclusion.