"Think over it, and try."

Tom mused for some moments and then began. "You see, sir, that I was
a very different man myself when I fell in love with Jessie Wiles, and
said, 'Come what may, that girl shall be my wife. Nobody else shall
have her.'"

"Agreed; go on."

"But while I was becoming a different man, when I thought of her--and
I was always thinking of her--I still pictured her to myself as the
same Jessie Wiles; and though, when I did see her again at Graveleigh,
after she had married--the day--"

"You saved her from the insolence of the Squire."

"She was but very recently married. I did not realize her as married.
I did not see her husband, and the difference within myself was only
then beginning. Well, so all the time I was reading and thinking, and
striving to improve my old self at Luscombe, still Jessie Wiles
haunted me as the only girl I had ever loved, ever could love; I could
not believe it possible that I could ever marry any one else. And
lately I have been much pressed to marry some one else; all my family
wish it: but the face of Jessie rose up before me, and I said to
myself, 'I should be a base man if I married one woman, while I could
not get another woman out of my head.' I must see Jessie once more,
must learn whether her face is now really the face that haunts me when
I sit alone; and I have seen her, and it is not that face: it may be
handsomer, but it is not a girl's face, it is the face of a wife and a