, he had always considered that Katie and he
were really the only sufferers. Young, petted, rich, and handsome, it
had not come forcibly home to him before, however much his courtesy
might have assumed it, that this young woman whom, though he thought she
did well enough, he had no high opinion of, could actually suffer in the
idea of being his wife. But he saw it now through all her brave bearing,
and his vanity received its death-wound that morning.

Three days afterwards he was at Katie's home; he tried to feel that he
had the old right to visit her. "Your friend is so brave," he said, "she
puts courage into me. Katie, why don't you feel so, too?"

"Ah!" said the girl looking at him tearfully, "how can you ask that? It
is she who has the right to you, and I have not."

"She wants it as little as mortal can," he answered. "I think except as
your betrothed she does not even like me very well, although she was so
kind when I came away." And he repeated Elizabeth's parting prophesy.

"She and I are the two extremes," returned the girl. "If Mr. Harwin is a
minister, it will seem to me, as I told you, just as if you and
Elizabeth had been divorced."

"Nonsense, love, you cannot separate what has never been joined
together." He kissed away the tears that brimmed over from Katie's eyes.
Yet as he did so, he was not sure that he had the right to do it, for
the shadow of another woman seemed to come between them. He had
confessed his dread to Elizabeth, but to this girl it was impossible; to
her he must be all confidence. How different were these two women toward
whom he stood in such peculiar relations, betrothed to one, possibly
married to the other. If this last were true which of them would suffer
the more? A week ago his imagination would not have seized upon
Elizabeth's feelings at all; now he was convinced that it would be no
less hard for her than for Katie; hard through her friendship and her
pride. But this one's tender little heart would break. After all, it was
only of her that he could think. The waiting was growing unendurable.
Yet he felt that his father was right when he said that the easiest
way, the shortest in the end, was to prove if possible that Harwin's
story of his vocation was fabricated. Indeed, there was no case for
appeal to the Court unless that were established. Let that fall through,
and the lovers were free to marry.

"Have you heard" he asked after a time, "that Sir Temple and Lady Dacre