strong arms. "Is she ill? Let us send for a
physician--quick!"

"Stay!" said his mother, as he deposited Jessie on the sofa and turned
quickly to put this last thought into execution. "Jessie's trouble is
one which no physician can alleviate. It is an affair of the heart."

Jack looked at his mother in amazement.

"An affair of the heart?" he repeated. "Surely not, mother. Why, I have
known Jessie ever since I can remember, and I never knew her to have a
beau."

"Perhaps she has given her heart to some one who does not return her
love--who may not even know of it," suggested Mrs. Garner, quietly.

"Impossible," declared Jack. "I have known her for years, I say, and if
there was an affair of the heart between Jessie and any of the young men
at the bindery, I should have known something of it."

Mrs. Garner came nearer and laid her hand on her son's arm.

"Are you _sure_, Jack?" she asked, in a low voice.

He gave a great start.

"I know of one whom she loves, and who, she knows, never thinks of her.
When his life hung in jeopardy her secret was revealed to me."

"Surely you _do not_--you _can not_ mean, mother--that she--that I--"

"Yes, that is what I mean," returned Mrs. Garner, quietly. "Jessie
Staples loves _you_, my boy; but do not be hard on the poor girl.
Remember, love goes where it is sent. She never intended that you should
know it. She did not breathe a word about it to any one. It was by the
merest chance that we made the discovery, and she does not dream that we
know it."

Jack sank down in the nearest chair, quite overcome with dismay.

His mother came and bent over him, smoothing the fair hair back from his
damp brow with a trembling hand, but uttering no word.

At last he broke the deep silence:

"What am I to say--what am I to do, mother, if--if--your surmises be
actually true?"

"They are not surmises, my boy," returned his mother; "they are truths."

"You know that I like Jessie," he went on, huskily; "but as for any
other sentiment--why, it would be impossible. My life will always be
tinged with the bitter sorrow of that other love-dream which was so
cruelly shattered. I--I wish to Heaven you had not told me your
suspicions about Jessie, mother."

"Her secret fell from my lips in an unguarded moment," she answered,
slowly, "and I am sorry you know all. Yet it must be a source of comfort
to you to know that although Dorothy Glenn was false to you, there is
_one_ heart which beats