No! he could not brave the sneer of the gossips, the triumph of his foes,
the dejection of his disciples, by so rank and rash a folly. But still
Mary pined so, he feared for her health--for his own unborn offspring.
There was a middle path,--a compromise between duty and the world; he
grasped at it as most men similarly situated would have done,--they were
married, but privately, and under feigned names: the secret was kept
close. Sarah Miles was the only witness acquainted with the real
condition and names of the parties.

Reconciled to herself, the bride recovered health and spirits, Templeton
formed the most sanguine hopes. He resolved, as soon as the confinement
was over, to go abroad; Mary should follow; in a foreign land they should
be publicly married; they would remain some years on the Continent; when
he returned, his child's age could be put back a year. Oh, nothing could
be more clear and easy!

Death shivered into atoms all the plans of Mr. Templeton. Mary suffered
most severely in childbirth, and died a few weeks afterwards. Templeton
at first was inconsolable, but worldly thoughts were great comforters.
He had done all that conscience could do to atone a sin, and he was freed
from a most embarrassing dilemma, and from a temporary banishment utterly
uncongenial and unpalatable to his habits and ideas. But now he had a
child,--a legitimate child, successor to his name, his wealth; a
first-born child,--the only one ever sprung from him, the prop and hope
of advancing years! On this child he doted with all that paternal
passion which the hardest and coldest men often feel the most for their
own flesh and blood--for fatherly love is sometimes but a transfer of
self-love from one fund to another.

Yet this child--this darling that he longed to show to the whole