or had frightened Rebecca. She now kept still
stricter watch upon herself, and redoubled her exertions to seem as
before. For no one must suspect what had happened: that a young man, an
utter stranger, had held her in his arms and kissed her--over and over
again!

As often as she realized this the blood rushed to her cheeks. She washed
herself ten times in the day, yet it seemed she could never be clean.

For what was it that had happened? Was it of the last extremity of
shame? Was she now any better than the many wretched girls whose errors
she had shuddered to think of, and had never been able to understand?
Ah, if there were only any one she could question! If she could only
unburden her mind of all the doubt and uncertainty that tortured her;
learn clearly what she had done; find out if she had still the right to
look her father in the face--or if she were the most miserable of all
sinners.

Her father often asked her if she could not confide to him what was
weighing on her mind; for he felt that she was keeping something from
him. But when she looked into his clear eyes, into his pure open face,
it seemed impossible, literally impossible, to approach that terrible
impure point and she only wept. She thought sometimes of that good Mrs.
Hartvig's soft hand; but she was a stranger, and far away. So she must
e'en fight out her fight in utter solitude, and so quietly that no one
should be aware of it.

And he, who was pursuing his path through life with so bright a
countenance and so heavy a heart! Should she ever see him again? And
if she were ever to meet him, where should she hide herself? He was an
inseparable part of all her doubt and pain; but she felt no bitterness,
no resentment towards him. All that she suffered bound her closer to
him, and he was never out of her thoughts.

In the daily duties of the household Rebecca was as punctual and
careful as ever. But in everything she did he was present to her memory.
Innunmerable spots in the house and garden recalled him to her thoughts;
she met him in the door-ways; she remembered where he stood when first
he spoke to her. She had never been at the King's Knoll since that day;
it was there that he had clasped her round the waist, and--kissed her.

The Pastor was full of solicitude about his daughter; but whenever the
Doctor's hint occurred to him he shook his head, half angrily. How could
he dream that a practised hand, with a well-worn trick of the fence,
co