matter-of-fact women are most of all likely to be exacting and ideal in
love affairs. Or, is it that this high and ideal way of looking at such
affairs is only another manifestation of practical wisdom?

Certain it is, that though Isa found it impossible to set down a single
reason for not loving so good a man with the utmost fervor, she found it
equally impossible to love him with any fervor at all.

Then she fell to pitying Lurton. She could make him happy and help him to
be useful, and she thought she ought to do it. But could she love Lurton
better than she could have loved any other man? Now, I know that most
marriages are not contracted on this basis. It is not given to every one
to receive this saying. I am quite aware that preaching on this subject
would be vain. Comparatively few people can live in this atmosphere. But
_noblesse oblige_--_noblesse_ does more than _oblige_--and Isa Marlay,
against all her habits of acting on practical expediency, could not bring
herself to marry the excellent Lurton without a consciousness of _moral
descending_, while she could not give herself a single satisfactory
reason for feeling so.

It went hard with Lurton. He had been so sure of divine approval and
guidance that he had not counted failure possible. But at such times the
man of trustful and serene habit has a great advantage. He took the
great disappointment as a needed spiritual discipline; he shouldered
this load as he had carried all smaller burdens, and went on his way
without a murmur.

Having resigned his Stillwater pastorate from a conviction that his
ministry among red-shirted lumbermen was not a great success, he armed
himself with letters from the warden of the prison and the other
ministers who had served as chaplains, and, above all, with Mrs.
Plausaby's written confession, and set out for Washington. He easily
secured money to defray the expense of the journey from Plausaby, who
held some funds belonging to his wife's estate, and who yielded to a
very gentle pressure from Lurton, knowing how entirely he was in
Lurton's power.

It is proper to say here that Albert's scrupulous conscience was never
troubled about the settlement of his mother's estate. Plausaby had an old
will, which bequeathed all to him _in fee simple_. He presented it for
probate, and would have succeeded, doubtless, in saving something by
acute juggling with his creditors, but that he heard ominous whispers of
the real solution of the