but traces of his
spiritual battle were deepening. During the visit which he had paid
(under compulsion, I am sure) to Juno at our boarding-house in company
with Miss Josephine St. Michael, his recent financial triumph at the
bedside had filled his face with diabolic elation as he confronted his
victim's enraged but checkmated aunt; when to the thinly veiled venom
of her inquiry as to a bridegroom's health he had retorted with venom as
thinly veiled that he was feeling better that night than for many weeks,
he had looked better, too; the ladies had exclaimed after his departure
what a handsome young man he was, and Juno had remarked how fervently
she trusted that marriage might cure him of his deplorable tendencies.
But to-day his vitality had sagged off beneath the weight of his
preoccupation: it looked to me as if, by a day or two more, the boy's
face might be grown haggard.

Whether by intention, or, as is more likely, by the perfectly natural
and spontaneous working of his nature, he speedily made it plain to
me that our relation, our acquaintance, had progressed to a stage more
friendly and confidential. He did not reveal this by imparting any
confidence to me; far from it; it was his silence that indicated
the ease he had come to feel in my company. Upon our last memorable
interview he had embarked at once upon a hasty yet evidently
predetermined course of talk, because he feared that I might touch upon
subjects which he wished excluded from all discussion between us; to-day
he embarked upon nothing, made no conventional effort of any sort, but
walked beside me, content with my mere society; if it should happen that
either of us found a thought worth expressing aloud, good! and if this
should not happen, why, good also! And so we walked mutely and agreeably
together for a long while. The thought which was growing clear in my
mind, and which was decidedly worthy of expression, was also unluckily
one which his new reliance upon my discretion completely forbade my
uttering in even the most shadowy manner; but it was a conviction which
Miss Josephine St. Michael should have been quick to force upon him for
his good. Quite apart from selfish reasons, he had no right to marry a
girl whom he had ceased to care for. The code which held a "gentleman"
to his plighted troth in such a case did more injury to the "lady" than
any "jilting" could possibly do. Never until now had I thought this
out so lucidly, and I was determine