20 Must-Read Thriller Novels

2. FROM 1843 TO 1861

2. FROM 1843 TO 1861Eight years later, feeling lonely and depressed—a man without

relatives, with many acquaintances but no friends—Ambrose Graye met

a young lady of a different kind, fairly endowed with money and

good gifts. As to caring very deeply for another woman after the

loss of Cytherea, it was an absolute impossibility with him. With

all, the beautiful things of the earth become more dear as they

elude pursuit; but with some natures utter elusion is the one

special event which will make a passing love permanent for

ever.

This second young lady and Graye were married. That he did not,

first or last, love his wife as he should have done, was known to

all; but few knew that his unmanageable heart could never be weaned

from useless repining at the loss of its first idol.

His character to some extent deteriorated, as emotional

constitutions will under the long sense of disappointment at having

missed their imagined destiny. And thus, though naturally of a

gentle and pleasant disposition, he grew to be not so tenderly

regarded by his acquaintances as it is the lot of some of those

persons to be. The winning and sanguine receptivity of his early

life developed by degrees a moody nervousness, and when not

picturing prospects drawn from baseless hope he was the victim of

indescribable depression. The practical issue of such a condition

was improvidence, originally almost an unconscious improvidence,

for every debt incurred had been mentally paid off with a religious

exactness from the treasures of expectation before mentioned. But

as years revolved, the same course was continued from the lack of

spirit sufficient for shifting out of an old groove when it has

been found to lead to disaster.

In the year 1861 his wife died, leaving him a widower with two

children. The elder, a son named Owen, now just turned seventeen,

was taken from school, and initiated as pupil to the profession of

architect in his father's office. The remaining child was a

daughter, and Owen's junior by a year.

Her christian name was Cytherea, and it is easy to guess

why.