women, but honor you more than all men. It
shall be as you have said. I will not seek you anywhere. As the mother,
dying of plague, denies herself the parting embrace of her 'unstricken'
child--so, for your sake, will I refrain from the heaven of your
presence."

"And, dear Thurston," she said, raising her head, "it will not be so
hard to bear, as you now think. We shall see each other every Sunday in
the church, and every Monday in the lecture-room. We shall often be of
the same invited company at neighbors' houses. Remember, also, that
Christmas is coming, with its protracted festivities, when we shall see
each other almost every evening, at some little neighborhood gathering.
And now I must really hurry; oh! how late I am this morning! Good-by,
dearest Thurston!"

"Good-by, my own Marian."

Blushingly she received, his parting kiss, and hurried along the little
foot-path leading to the village.

Thurston had been perfectly sincere in his resolution not to seek a
private interview with Marian; and he kept it faithfully all the week,
with less temptation to break it, because he did not know where to watch
for her.

But Sunday came again--and Thurston, with a little bit of human
self-deception and _finesse_, avoided the forest path, where he had met
her the preceding Sabbath, and saying to himself that he would not
waylay her, took the river road, refusing to confess even to himself
that he acted upon the calculation that she also would take the same
road, in order to avoid meeting him in the forest.

His "calculus of probabilities" had not failed him. He had not walked
far upon the forest-shaded banks of the river before he saw Marian
walking before him. He hastened and overtook her.

At first seeing him her face flushed radiant with surprise and joy.
She seemed to think that nothing short of necromancy could have conjured
him to that spot. She had no reproaches for him, because she had no
suspicion that he had trifled with his promise not to seek her. But she
expressed her astonishment.

"I did not know you ever came this way," she said.

"Nor did I ever before, love; but I remembered my pledge, not to follow
or to seek you, and so I avoided the woodland path where we met last
Sunday," said Thurston, persuading himself that he spoke the precise
truth.

It is not necessary to pursue with them this walk; lovers scarcely thank
us for such intrusions. It is sufficient to say that this was not the
last one.