"You seem surprised at her leaving you so abruptly. You will join me in
making search for her?"

"I shall search for her, myself, as long as there is hope."

"Let me confess," said Greenleaf, "that I have the strongest reasons for
my haste. She is betrothed to me."

"Since you have honored me with your confidence, I will return it, so
far as to tell you what I heard from her this morning. I think I
can remember the precise words:--'I have received a wound from the
faithlessness of one lover, which never will heal.' If you are the
person, I hope the information will be as agreeable to you as her
absence and ill-judging independence are to me. I wish you good
morning."

"Then she has heard!" said Greenleaf, soliloquizing. "I am justly
punished." Then aloud. "I shall not take offence at your severity of
tone. I have but one thought now. Good morning!"

He left the house, like one in a dream. Alice, homeless in the
streets this bitter day,--seeking for a home in poverty-stricken
boarding-houses,--asking for work from tailors or milliners,--exposed
to jeers, coarse compliments, and even to utter want!--the thought was
agony. The sorrows of a whole life were concentrated in this one hour.
He walked on, frantically, peering under every bonnet as he passed,
looking wistfully in at the shop-windows, expecting every moment to
encounter her sad, reproachful face.