"I fear you are worse. That little outing was too much for you," he exclaimed.
"No, it is not that. I am restless; it is a trouble of the heart," confessed the patient, frankly.
"Ah!" exclaimed Ralph, sympathetically, adding: "Can I help you?"
"No one can help me," sighed Hawthorne, hopelessly.
"Is it a love affair?"
"Yes."
"It is hopeless, I judge, from your expressions. Then why not throw it from your mind? Forget the cruel fair one?"
"Have you ever loved, Ralph?"
"Never," laughed the handsome young author, who only worshiped at the shrine of the muses.
"I thought not, or you would not use that hackneyed word forget. It is impossible to real love—a poet's dream, but an impossibility."