ty toward Hope, whenever they should meet. After a long struggle,
he had touched, not her sense of justice, for she had none, but her love
for him; he had aroused her tenderness and her pride.

Without his actual assurance, she yet believed that he would release
himself in some way from his betrothal, and love only her.

Malbone had fortunately great control over Emilia when near her, and
could thus keep the sight of this stormy passion from the pure and
unconscious Hope. But a new distress opened before him, from the time
when he again touched Hope's hand. The close intercourse of the voyage
had given him for the time almost a surfeit of the hot-house atmosphere
of Emilia's love. The first contact of Hope's cool, smooth fingers,
the soft light of her clear eyes, the breezy grace of her motions, the
rose-odors that clung around her, brought back all his early passion.
Apart from this voluptuousness of the heart into which he had fallen,
Malbone's was a simple and unspoiled nature; he had no vices, and had
always won popularity too easily to be obliged to stoop for it; so all
that was noblest in him paid allegiance to Hope. From the moment they
again met, his wayward heart reverted to her. He had been in a dream, he
said to himself; he would conquer it and be only hers; he would go away
with her into the forests and green fields she loved, or he would share
in the life of usefulness for which she yearned. But then, what was he
to do with this little waif from the heart's tropics,--once tampered
with, in an hour of mad dalliance, and now adhering in-separably to his
life? Supposing him ready to separate from her, could she be detached
from him?

Kate's anxieties, when she at last hinted them to Malbone, only sent him
further into revery. "How is it," he asked himself, "that when I only
sought to love and be loved, I have thus entangled myself in the fate of
others? How is one's heart to be governed? Is there any such governing?
Mlle. Clairon complained that, so soon as she became seriously attached
to any one, she was sure to meet somebody else whom she liked better.
Have human hearts," he said, "or at least, has my heart, no more
stability than this?"

It did not help the matter when Emilia went to stay awhile with Mrs.
Meredith. The event came about in this way. Hope and Kate had been to a
dinner-party, and were as usual reciting their experiences to Aunt Jane.

"Was it pleasant?" said that sympathetic lady.

"It