This which had come about was inevitable.  After his departure from Dunfield on that winter day, when his life seemed crushed, he had for a long time not even sought to hear of Emily.  He did not write to Mrs. Baxendale, and from her had no letters.  Correspondence between them only recommenced some ten months later, when Wilfrid had finally left Oxford, and then there was no mention on either side of the old troubles.  Wilfrid began by writing that he had thoughts of taking up politics; his father advised him to the step, and other friends seconded the recommendation.  ‘I really believe I can talk,’ he said, and Mrs. Baxendale smiled at the confession.  Three months more went by; then Wilfrid at length asked plainly whether Emily had sent any news of herself, or whether the suspicions had proved grounded.  The reply was this:—­

’As I knew perfectly well, as soon as I came to my senses, Emily had told us the truth.  I heard from her for the first time nearly half a year ago, but, as she appealed to my honour not to disclose the place of her abode, I thought it needless to speak to you on the subject before you yourself seemed desirous of hearing.  She is teaching in a school, and I am convinced that the story we together concocted was based on some utter mistake; I don’t think she was ever related to that man in the way we thought.  But it is more than probable that there was some mystery about her father’s death, in which Mr. D. was concerned.  I cannot imagine what it could be.  Something it was which, to Emily’s mind, imposed upon her a necessity of breaking her engagement.  I have spoken to her of you, have asked her directly if she still thinks her decision final; she assures me most solemnly that it is.  I therefore advise you once for all to accept this; I am convinced she will never waver.  Try to forget her; there is no choice.  I don’t think I am likely to see her again for a very long time, if ever, and our correspondence will be very slight, for I know she wishes it so.  Let this, then, close a sad, sad story.’

There was indeed no choice, as far as outward relations went, but so profound a passion was not to be easily outgrown.  The view which makes first love alone eternally valid derives from a conception of the nature of love which, out of the realm of poetry, we may not entertain; but it sometimes happens that the first love is that which would at any period of life have been the supreme one, and then it doubtless attains a special intensity of hold from the fact of its being allied with the earliest outburst of physical passion.  Above all it is thus if the attachment has been brought about by other charms than those of mere personal beauty.  Emily could not be called beautiful, in the ordinary acceptation of the word; for all that, her face grew to possess for Wilfrid a perfection of loveliness beyond anything that he would ever again see in the countenance of fairest woman.  Had he been markedly susceptible to female beauty, it is