lose their
doors earlier than usual, and Mr. Prime and I set off to enjoy a half
holiday in our usual fashion. He was at the height of good spirits, for
the affair in which he was interested jointly with Roger Dale was doing
wonderfully well, and the profits promised to be enormous. Absorbed in
conversation, we failed to notice the close proximity of a rapidly
driven horse, from under the hoofs of which I escaped by a mere hair's
breadth. It was a trivial incident in itself, but the exclamation which
my companion made, and the eager impetuous way in which he expressed
himself regarding my safety, served to open my eyes to the real
condition of affairs between us. There was no use in my seeking longer
to conceal from myself the reason for my remaining in New York. It was
Mr. Prime's society that held me there, and decency bade me to put an
end to our relations at once, but on his account far more than on my
own; for while I flattered myself that my heart was untouched save by
the emotion of a warm friendship, I could not dismiss the conviction
that his feeling for me was rapidly approaching the point at which
friendship becomes an impossibility. I must go, and immediately. It was
foolish and culpable of me to have stayed so long. A girl in the first
blush of maidenhood might excuse herself on the score of not recognizing
the signs of a more than Platonic interest, but for me such an apology
could not be other than a subterfuge. Mr. Prime had worry enough
already, and why add to it the pain of an unrequited attachment? I would
go on Monday. To-morrow we were to walk once more, and I would frame
some excuse, which he would never suspect, for severing our connections.

But parallel with these reflections was a certain element of curiosity
in my mind as to whether Francis Prime would be ever so far carried
away by his liking for me as to ask me to become his wife,--me, Alice
Bailey, his poor, hired clerk! I wondered that I should be especially
interested in the matter, for its ludicrous side was at once apparent;
that is to say, the situations portrayed in cheap contemporaneous
fiction, of beautiful working-girls led to the altar by the sons of rich
bankers, immediately suggested themselves. But nevertheless the thought
haunted me, and I did not feel altogether the degree of contrition at
the idea of having captivated him that I perhaps should have done. If it
was not for myself alone that he loved me, what was his love worth