it would be
different, but it is only for her pleasure, and as an accomplishment."
He spoke earnestly and impersonally, as he always did when she
consulted him on any of her affairs, He was trying, too, to wipe from
her mind all remembrance of his impatience.

Jane kept her eyes on the carpet for a moment, and then said quietly,
and he thought in rather a hopeless tone:

"It is best we go at once."

The doctor looked at her searchingly--with the eye of a scientist, this
time, probing for a hidden meaning.

"Then there is something else you have not told me; someone is annoying
her, or there is someone with whom you are afraid she will fall in
love. Who is it? You know how I could help in a matter of that kind."

"No; there is no one."

Doctor John leaned back thoughtfully and tapped the arm of the sofa
with his fingers. He felt as if a door had been shut in his face.

"I don't understand it," he said slowly, and in a baffled tone. "I have
never known you to do a thing like this before. It is entirely unlike
you. There is some mystery you are keeping from me. Tell me, and let me
help."

"I can tell you nothing more. Can't you trust me to do my duty in my
own way?" She stole a look at him as she spoke and again lowered her
eyelids.

"And you are determined to go?" he asked in his former cross-examining
tone.

"Yes."

Again the doctor kept silence. Despite her assumed courage and
determined air, his experienced eye caught beneath it all the shrinking
helplessness of the woman.

"Then I, too, have reached a sudden resolve," he said in a manner
almost professional in its precision. "You cannot and shall not go
alone."

"Oh, but Lucy and I can get along together," she exclaimed with nervous
haste. "There is no one we could take but Martha, and she is too old.
Besides she must look after the house while we are away."

"No; Martha will not do. No woman will do. I know Paris and its life;
it is not the place for two women to live in alone, especially so
pretty and light-hearted a woman as Lucy."

"I am not afraid."

"No, but I am," he answered in a softened voice, "very much afraid." It
was no longer the physician who spoke, but the friend.

"Of what?"

"Of a dozen things you do not understand, and cannot until you
encounter them," he replied, smoothing her hand tenderly.

"Yes, but it cannot be helped. There is no one to go with us." This
came with some positiveness, yet with a note of impatience in h