There is no comfort in looking back upon a period when hope was high and unchecked. I have met with men who, in their maudlin moments--usually towards the close of the evening--were actuated by an impulse similar to that which compelled the Ancient Mariner to renew his wondrous tale: and I have heard them on such occasions recount the whole circumstances of their unfortunate wooing with voices choked by grief, and with tears of tender imbecility. I have observed, however, that, on the morrow succeeding such disclosures, these gentlemen have invariably a shy and sheepish appearance, as though inwardly conscious that they had extended their confidence too far, and rather dubious as to the sincerity of their apparent sympathizers. Warned by their example, I hold it neither profitable nor wise to push my own confessions too far. If Edith gave me at the outset more encouragement than she ought to have done--if she systematically led me to believe that I had made an impression upon her heart--if she honoured me with a preference so marked, that it deceived not only myself, but others--let the blame be hers. But why should I go minutely into the courtship of half a year? As difficult, indeed, and as futile, would it be to describe the alternations of an April day, made up of sunshine and of shower, of cloud and rainbow and storm--sometimes mild and hopeful, then ominous of an eve of tempest. For a long time, I had not the slightest suspicion that I had a rival. I remarked, indeed, with somewhat of dissatisfaction, that Edith appeared to listen too complacently to the commonplace flatteries of the officers who are the habitual haunters of private ball and of public assembly. She danced too often with Ensign Corkingham, flirted rather openly with Major Chawser, and certainly had no business whatever to be present at a military fête and champagne luncheon given at the Castle by these brave defenders of their country. I was not invited to that fête, and the circumstance, as I well remember, was the cause of a week’s coolness between us. But it was not until Lieutenant Roper of the dragoons appeared in the field that I felt any particular cause for uneasiness.
To give the devil his due, Roper was a handsome fellow. He stood upwards of six feet in his boots, had a splendid head of curling black hair, and a mustachio and whiskers to match. His nose was beautifully aquiline, his eyes of the darkest hazel, and a perpetual smile, which the puppy had cultivated from infancy, disclosed a box of brilliant dominoes. I knew Roper well, for I had twice bailed him out of the police-office, and, in return, he invited me to mess. Our obligations, therefore, to each other might be considered as nearly equal--in fact, the balance, if any, lay upon his side, as upon one occasion he had won from me rather more than fifty pounds at ecarté. He was not a bad fellow either, though a little slap-dash in his manner, and somewhat supercilious in his cups; on which occasions--and they were not unfrequent--he was by far too general in his denunciation of all classes of civilians. He was, I believe, the younger son of a Staffordshire baronet, of good connexions, but no money--in fact, his patrimony was his commission, and he was notoriously on the outlook for an heiress. Now, Edith Bogle was rumoured to have twenty thousand pounds.