Then, indeed, did Maggie awake to
the reality that while her hand was plighted to one, she loved
another--not as in days gone by she had loved Henry Warner, but with a
deeper, more absorbing love. With this knowledge, too, there came the
thought that Arthur Carrollton had once loved her, and but for the
engagement now so much regretted he would ere this have told her so.
But it was too late! too late! He would never feel toward her again as
he once had felt, and bitter tears she shed as she contemplated
the fast-coming future, when Arthur Carrollton would be gone, or
shudderingly thought of the time when Henry Warner would return to
claim her promise.
"I cannot, cannot marry him," she cried, "until I've torn that other
image from my heart!" and then for many days she strove to recall the
olden love in vain; for, planted on the sandy soil of childhood, as it
were, it had been outgrown, and would never again spring into life. "I
will write to him exactly how it is," she said at last; "will tell
him that the affection I felt for him could not have been what a wife
should feel for her husband. I was young, had seen nothing of the
world, knew nothing of gentlemen's society, and when he came with his
handsome face and winning ways my interest was awakened. Sympathy,
too, for his misfortune increased that interest, which grandma's
opposition tended in no wise to diminish. But it has died out, that
fancied love, and I cannot bring it back.
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