your own case. The woman who can be happy in marriage with you,
cannot be happy with another man. Let us, just to make the thing
clear, suppose that Jessie Loring is the woman whose inner life is
most in harmony with yours. If your lives blend in a true marriage,
then will she find true happiness; but, if, through your failure to
woo and win, she be drawn aside into a marriage with one whose life
is inharmonious, to what a sad, weary, hopeless existence may she
not be doomed. Paul! Paul! There are two aspects in which this
question is to be viewed. I pray to Heaven that you may see it
right."

Further conversation was prevented by the near approach of others.

"Let me see you, and early, Paul," said Mrs. Denison. It was some
hours later, and the company were separating. "I must talk with you
again about Miss Loring."

Hendrickson promised to call in a day or two. As he turned from Mrs.
Denison, his eyes encountered those of the young lady whose name had
just been uttered. She was standing beside Mr. Dexter, who was
officiously attentive to her up to the last moment. He was holding
her shawl ready to throw it over her shoulders as she stepped from
the door to the carriage that awaited her. For a moment or two the
eyes of both were fixed, and neither had the power to move them.
Then, each with a slight confusion of manner, turned from the other.
Hendrickson retired into the nearly deserted parlors, while Miss
Loring, attended by Dexter, entered the carriage, and was driven
away.