A Love Story(Puzzle)

A Love Story(Puzzle) -
He said I was beautiful, he did, I assure you; and I know he was right, for my skin was as soft as satin, and white like ivory, my figure slender and elegant.

Our first meeting was in a shop, and he made no attempt to disguise his admiration. He praised me up to the skies and called me “very dear.” From that day and for many months we were inseparable. I occupied all his thoughts.

Again and again he gazed with indescribable affection at my wonderful complexion, my graceful figure, and pressed me to his lips.

His embrace was tenderness itself, and whenever some trifling accident marred my beauty-if only for a day-his anxious solicitude knew no bounds. At night I rested on velvet pillows, and by day I accompanied him wherever he went.

He always enjoyed my society, even when nothing else afforded him pleasure.

He would turn to me, and not in vain, for comfort and relief when all other friends proved faithless. Oh! why was it not fated to be ever thus?

Alas! one day in a public thoroughfare I had a heavy fall, and, though it was through his fault, I was never the same to him as before. This cruel misadventure fairly broke me down. True, he endeavored afterwards to make amends for his harsh treatment.

He treated me with the greatest consideration and loaded me with silver; but the light of former days had gone out.

He tried to leave me as before, but in vain; his feelings had undergone a complete change, and now I am nothing but a miserable wreck of my former self.

Here I lie, all alone in my sorrow, a forsaken, broken —-?

This story can be completed by the use of one word. How many of you can figure it out?