It was in vain that
he sought to close or avert his eyes. There seemed a spell upon him;
and he could only look and read.
"Fatal error!" he murmured to himself, as he struggled to free
himself from his thraldom to the past. "Fatal error! How a single
act will curse a man through life. Oh! if I could but extinguish the
whole of this memory! If I could wipe out the hand-writing. Sorrow,
repentance, is of no avail. The past is gone for ever. Why then
should I thus continue to be unhappy over what I cannot alter? It
avails nothing to Edith. She is happy--far happier than if she had
remained on this troublesome earth."
But, even while he uttered these words, there came into his mind
such a realizing sense of what the poor girl must have suffered,
when she found her love thrown back upon her, crushing her heart by
its weight, that he bowed his head upon his bosom and in bitter
self-upbraidings passed the hours until midnight, when sleep locked
up his senses, and calmed the turbulence of his feelings.
CHAPTER III.
MONTHS elapsed before Edwin Florence ventured again into company.
"Why will you shut yourself up after this fashion?" said an
acquaintance to him one day.
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