XVII. WHETHER OR NO. IRIAM lost and found, was dearer now than ever. Dismayed at the chances that might have befallen, he could scarcely endure her out of his sight. Loving, previously, had been like living or breathing; now, it was a positive thing, another existence; and so precious did it seem, that analyzing, he began to entertain a jealousy of it. He knew very well that he always borrowed tone from the nature that had influenced him last and strongest. Thus when his Ghost was his sole companion, he had been fit for such intimacy; afterward, he had taken St. Denys's genial calm; and now when Miriam, dancing and iridescent as a foam-flake, met and overpowered him with her exuberant life, he was sentient of wearing the same hues in which she beamed. So that, in fact, she unconsciously saw herself mirrored in him, and with a natural self-love was attracted toward the image. An apotheosis of self-love, truly; but then, thought Sir Rohan, what more is any other love? And is not its design and use, perhaps, for the highest development of personality? Those, then, who have loved, — loved in the mad flames that burn away dross and leave the bare edge of self-consciousness welded with that of another,those may die. As a corollary to this idea, not long subsequently a strange fantasy seized him. Floating with Miriam in his boat, one sail stretched through light and shade, down a small river that he had not navigated for years, and rocking in mid. channel on the broad oily swells of the receding tide, that, compared to the crisp wavelets nearer shore, surrounded them like fields of calm, he suddenly found himself drifting in a current that ran swiftly out among the breakers at the river's mouth, glimpses of whose white plumes he already caught tossing in glee over their approaching prey. The little boat, once among them, would be staved to atoms, wave after wave dashing against it; the strongest swimmer would only be gored and impaled upon those cruel rocks; while with the effort to free himself, one oar snapped, and he saw it sucked along far in advance. In the midst of his strenuous exertions with the remaining one, he paused to gaze on the unconscious girl, suffering the boat to drift onward, and thinking were it not better both together now to plunge into the vortex of eternity, than that he at some future day, meeting a stronger influence, should cease to reflect her nature, to represent her startling characteristics; should reassume himself, — though still cherishing her tenderly, and she, finding the pleasing likeness no longer there, should cease to bestow her love upon that which, having held it, was now to her vacant. A thing, he felt, that might be as natural for her, as for a queen to put on and take off the crown. It was not he that experienced change, but circumstance that conquered him; yet she-change was half her beauty. But while he balanced life and chances, Time was meddling with the weights, and the boat settling downward; and still he gazed at the one whose moments he was numbering, shuddered at the gaunt image of a day desti tute of her devotion, and thrilled at the delirious draught of death that it was theirs to quaff in youth should they choose. He knew the wild moment of fear that would snatch her heart away at first; but he also pictured the returning passion when, absorbed in him, she sank down the great gulfs of darkness, while, even should there be no hereafter, they almost eternized this love by its dying strength, soul closing with soul. But in this instance, as in others, the instinct for life exceeded the reasoning power, and Sir Rohan, after a struggle, made the shallower water once more, and following the windings of the stream, reached their starting-point at last, in the shades of his unfrequented park, scattering the deer who had trooped to drink in the quiet pools of its lazier flow. It was not, however, an agreeable conclusion that had forced itself upon him, that the moment he ceased to present in himself the image of Miriam, she would transfer her love to its next shrine, but nor was it fealty to her. Neither was it pleasant to find himself no relief— no cameo merely a vacuum where other and more glowing |