seeking it. "I might make her think she loved me, perhaps," he said to
himself. "She is so lonely and sad, and has seen so few men; but it would
be base. She needs a nature totally different from mine, a life unlike the
life I shall lead. I will never try to make her love me. And he never did.
He taught her and trained her, and developed her, patiently, exactingly,
and yet tenderly as if she had been his sister; but he never betrayed to
her, even by a look or tone, that he could have loved her as his wife. No
doubt his influence was greater over her for this subtle, unacknowledged
bond. It gave to their intercourse a certain strange mixture of reticence
and familiarity, which grew more and more perilous and significant month
by month. Probably a change must have come, had they lived thus closely
together a year or two longer. The change could have been in but one
direction. They loved each other too much to ever love less: they might
have loved more; and Mercy's life had been more peaceful, her heart had
known a truer content, if she had never felt any stronger emotion than
that which Harley Allen's love would have roused in her bosom. But his
resolution was inexorable. His instinct was too keen, his will too strong:
he compelled all his home-seeking, wife-loving thoughts to turn away from
Mercy; and, six months after her departure, he had loyally and lovingly
promised to be the husband of another. In Mercy's future he felt an
intense interest; he would never cease to watch over her, if she would let
him; he would guide, mould, and direct her, until the time came--he knew
it would come--when she had outgrown his help, and ascended to a plane
where he could no longer guide her. His greatest fear was lest, from her
overflowing vitality and keen sensuous delight in all the surface
activities and pleasures of life, the intellectual side of her nature
should be kept in the background and not properly nourished. He had
compelled her to study, to think, to write. Who would do this for her in
the new home? He knew enough of Stephen White's nature to fear that he,
while he might be an appreciative friend, would not be a stimulating one.