The young man softly followed her, stood opposite the house and watched her come into the upper room with the light.  Presently his gaze was cut short by her approaching the window and pulling down the blind—­Edward dwelling upon her vanishing figure with a hopeless sense of loss akin to that which Adam is said by logicians to have felt when he first saw the sun set, and thought, in his inexperience, that it would return no more.

He waited till her shadow had twice crossed the window, when, finding the charming outline was not to be expected again, he left the street, crossed the harbour-bridge, and entered his own solitary chamber on the other side, vaguely thinking as he went (for undefined reasons),

   ’One hope is too like despair
   For prudence to smother.’

III.  THE EVENTS OF EIGHT DAYS

1.  From the twenty-second to the twenty-seventh of July

But things are not what they seem.  A responsive love for Edward Springrove had made its appearance in Cytherea’s bosom with all the fascinating attributes of a first experience, not succeeding to or displacing other emotions, as in older hearts, but taking up entirely new ground; as when gazing just after sunset at the pale blue sky we see a star come into existence where nothing was before.

His parting words, ‘Don’t forget me,’ she repeated to herself a hundred times, and though she thought their import was probably commonplace, she could not help toying with them,—­looking at them from all points, and investing them with meanings of love and faithfulness,—­ostensibly entertaining such meanings only as fables wherewith to pass the time, yet in her heart admitting, for detached instants, a possibility of their deeper truth.  And thus, for hours after he had left her, her reason flirted with her fancy as a kitten will sport with a dove, pleasantly and smoothly through easy attitudes, but disclosing its cruel and unyielding nature at crises.

To turn now to the more material media through which this story moves, it so happened that the very next morning brought round a circumstance which, slight in itself, took up a relevant and important position between the past and the future of the persons herein concerned.

At breakfast time, just as Cytherea had again seen the postman pass without bringing her an answer to the advertisement, as she had fully expected he would do, Owen entered the room.

‘Well,’ he said, kissing her, ’you have not been alarmed, of course.  Springrove told you what I had done, and you found there was no train?’

‘Yes, it was all clear.  But what is the lameness owing to?’

’I don’t know—­nothing.  It has quite gone off now . . .  Cytherea, I hope you like Springrove.  Springrove’s a nice fellow, you know.’

‘Yes.  I think he is, except that—­’