How Elbert’s moods, of late, had hid themselves

In strange far mists of fancy.—Could it be

That Edith, she was his?—And he, my friend,

Was he the one then that had caged her love,

And placed it where my soul in reaching forth

Could sense but bars of chill indifference?—

I could not ask her nor her sister this;

Nor even Elbert’s now, for in the week

When first I met her, she had sail’d for home.

But soon, like worms that would not wait for death,