er. You
came directly here, according to your own admission, and asked for
me. Not being well, I desired to be excused. But you would take no
excuse. Your manner to the servant was not only disturbed, but
imperative. To me it is constrained, and altogether different from
anything I have hitherto noticed. So much is disclosed. Now I wish
you to go on and tell the whole story. Then we shall understand each
other. What has Mrs. Denison said about me that has so ruffled your
feelings?"

There was no retreat for the perplexed young man. He must go forward
in some path--straight or tortuous--manly or evasive. There was too
much apparent risk in the former; and so he chose the latter. All at
once his exterior changed. The clouded brow put on a sunny aspect.

"Forgive me, dear Jessie!" he said with ardor, and a restored
tenderness of manner. "True love has ever a touch of jealousy; and
something that Mrs. Denison intimated aroused that darker passion.
But the shadowed hour has passed, and I am in the clear sunlight
again."

He raised her hand to his lips, and kissed it with fervor.

"What did she intimate?" asked Miss Loring. Her manner was less
excited, and her tone less imperative.

"What I now see to be false," said Dexter. "I was disturbed because
I imagined intrigue, and a purpose to rob me of something I prize
more dearly than life--the love of my Jessie."

"Intrigue!" was answered; "you fill me with surprise. Mrs. Denison,
if I understand her, is incapable of anything so dishonorable."

"I don't know." Mr. Dexter spoke with the manner of one in doubt,
and as if questioning his own thoughts. "She has filled my mind with
dark suspicions. Why, Jessie!" and he assumed a more animated
exterior, "she went so far as to intimate a disingenuous spirit in
you!"

"In me!" Miss Loring's surprise was natural. "Disingenuousness!"

"That word is not the true one," said Dexter. "What she said meant
something more."

"What?"

"That you were--but I will not pain your ears, darling! Forgive my
foolish indignation. Love with me is so vital a thing, that the
remotest suspicion of losing its object, brings smarting pain. You
are all the world to me, Jessie, and the intimation"--

"Of what, Leon?"

He had left the sentence unfinished. Dexter was holding one of her
hands. She did not attempt to withdraw it.

"That you were false to me!"

The words caused Miss Loring to spring to her feet. Bright spots
burned on her cheeks,