By "we all" in that sentence of his soliloquy, Dr. Eben really meant
"I." He was beginning to be half aware of a personal unhappiness,
because Hetty showed no more consciousness of his existence. Her few
words this morning about returning home had produced startling results
in his mind; like those a chemist sometimes sees in his crucible, when,
on throwing in a single drop of some powerful agent, he discovers by
its instantaneous and infallible test, the presence of things he had not
suspected were there. Dr. Eben Williams clenched his hands as he paced
up and down the beach. He did not wish to love Hetty Gunn. He did
not approve of loving Hetty Gunn; but love her he did with the whole
strength of his soul. In this one brief hour, he had become aware of it.
What would be its result, in vain he tried to conjecture. One moment, he
said to himself that it was not in Hetty's nature to love any man; the
next moment, with a lover's inconsistency, he reproached himself for a
thought so unjust to her: one moment, he rated himself soundly for his
weakness, and told himself sternly that it was plain Hetty cared no more
for him than she did for one of her farm laborers; the next moment, he
fell into reverie full of a vague and hopeful recalling of all the kind
and familiar things she had ever done or said. The sum and substance of
his meditations was, however, that nothing should lead him to commit the
folly of asking Hetty to marry him, unless her present manner toward him
changed.

"I dare say she would laugh in my face," thought he; "I don't know but
that she would in any man's face who should ask her," and, armed and
panoplied in this resolution, Dr. Eben walked up to the spot where Hetty
sat under one of the old Balm of Gilead trees sewing, with the baby
in its cradle at her feet. It was still early morning: the Safe Haven
spires shone in the sun, and the little fishing schooners were racing