, "I
need scarcely say to you that my heart has never swerved from its
first idolatry. To love Jessie Loring was an instinct of my
nature--therefore, to love her once was to love her forever. You
know how cruelly circumstances came with their impassable barriers.
They were only barriers, and destroyed nothing. As brightly as ever
burned the fires--as ardently as ever went forth love's strong
impulses with every heart-beat. And her heart remained true to mine
as ever was needle to the pole."

"That is a bold assertion, Paul," said Mrs. Denison, "and one that
it pains me to hear you make."

"It is true; but why does it give you pain?" he asked.

"Because it intimates the existence of an understanding between you
and Mrs. Dexter, and looks to the confirmation of rumors that I have
always considered as without a shadow of foundation."

"My name has never been mentioned in connection with hers."

"It has."

"Mrs. Denison!"

"It is true."

"I never heard it."

"Nor I but once."

"What was said?"

"That you were the individual against whom Mr. Dexter's jealousy was
excited, and that your clandestine meetings with his wife led to the
separation."

"I had believed," said Hendrickson, after a pause, and in a voice
that showed a depression of feeling, "that busy rumor had never
joined our names together. That it has done so, I deeply regret. No
voluntary action of mine led to this result; and it was my opinion
that Dexter had carefully avoided any mention of my name, even to
his most intimate friends."

"I only heard the story once, and then gave it my emphatic denial,"
said Mrs. Denison.

"And yet it was true, I believe, though in a qualified sense. We did
meet, not clandestinely, however, nor with design."

"But without a thought, much less a purpose of dishonor," said Mrs.
Denison, almost severely.

"Without even a thought of dishonor," replied Hendrickson. "Both
were incapable of that. She arrived at Newport when I was there. We
met, suddenly and unexpectedly, face to face, and when off our
guard. I read her heart, and she read mine, in lightning glimpses.
The pages were shut instantly, and not opened again. We met once or
twice after that, but as mere acquaintances, and I left on the day
after she came, because I saw that the discipline was too severe for
her, and that I was not only in an equivocal, but dangerous, if not
dishonorable position. Dexter had his eyes on me all the while, and
if I crossed