t, may I ask one
question?"

"Speak, Mr. Hendrickson; but beware how you speak."

"Had I spoken as now this morning, would you have answered: 'Too
late?'"

He was looking intently upon her face. She did not reply
immediately, but seemed pondering. Hendrickson repeated the
question.

"I have said that it was _now_ too late." Miss Loring raised her
eyes and looked steadily upon him. "Go sir, and let this hour and
this interview pass from your memory. If you are wise, you will
forget it. Be just to me, sir. If I have betrayed the existence of
any feeling towards you warmer than respect, it has been under
sudden and strong temptation. As a man of honor, you must keep the
secret inviolate."

There was not a sign of girlish weakness about the calm speaker. Her
small head was erect; her slight body drawn to its full height; her
measured tones betrayed not a ripple of feeling.

"I am affianced, and know my duty," she added. "Know it, and will
perform it to the letter. And now, sir, spare me from this moment.
And when we meet again, as meet no doubt we shall, let it be as
friends--no more."

The pressure of despair was on the heart of Paul Hendrickson. He was
not able to rally himself. He could not retain the calm exterior a
little while before assumed.

"We part, then," he said, speaking in a broken voice--"part--and,
ever after, a great gulf must lie between us! I go at your bidding,"
and he moved towards the door. "Farewell, Miss Loring." He extended
his hand; she took it, and they stood looking into each other's
eyes.

"God bless you, and keep you spotless as the angels!" he added,
suddenly raising her hand to his lips, and kissing it with wild
fervor. In the next moment the bewildered girl was alone.

CHAPTER VII.

THE visit of Hendrickson was an hour too late, Dexter had already
been there, and pressed his suit to a formal issue. The bold suitor
had carried off the prize, while the timid one yet hesitated. Jessie
went back to her room, after her interview with Paul Hendrickson, in
spiritual stature no longer a half developed girl, but a full woman
grown. The girl's strength would no longer have sustained her. Only
the woman's soul, strong in principle and strong to endure, could
bear up now. And the woman's soul shuddered in the conflict of
passions that came like furies to destroy her--shuddered and bent,
and writhed like some strong forest-tree in the maddening whirl of a
tempest. But there was