CHAPTER IV.





ON leaving Mr. Dexter, Jessie Loring almost flew to her room, like
one escaping from peril. Closing and locking the door, she crossed
the apartment, and falling forward against the bed, sunk down upon
her knees and buried her face in a pillow. She did not pray. There
was no power in her to lift a petition upwards. But weak, in
bewilderment of spirit and abandonment of will she bent in deep
prostration of soul and body.

It was nearly an hour before she arose. Very calm had her mind
become in this long interval--very calm and very clear. With the
plummet line of intense thought, quickened by keen perception, she
had sounded the depths of her heart. She found places
there--capacities for loving--intense yearnings--which had remained
hidden until now. The current of her life had hitherto run smoothly
in the sunshine, its surface gleaming and in breezy ripples. But the
stream had glided from the open meadows and the sunshine, and the
shadow of a great rock had fallen upon it. The surface was still as
glass; and now looking downward, she almost shuddered as sight