sonment, nor the overthrow of his educational schemes--though all of
these were cups of bitterness. But the first thought with him was to ask
what would be the effect of his arrest on Miss Minorkey. He had felt some
disappointment in not finding Helen the ideal woman he had pictured her,
but, as I said a while ago, love does not die at the first
disappointment. If it finds little to live on in the one who is loved, it
will yet find enough in the memories, the hopes, and the ideals that
dwell within the lover. Charlton, in the long night after his arrest,
reviewed everything, but in thinking of Miss Minorkey, he did not once
recur to her lack of deep sympathy with him in his sorrow for Katy. The
Helen he thought of was the radiant Helen that sat by his beloved Katy in
the boat on that glorious evening in which he rowed in the long northern
twilight, the Helen that had relaxed her dignity enough to dip her palm
in the water and dash spray into his face. He saw her like one looking
back through clouds of blackness to catch a sight of a bit of sky and a
single shining star. As the impossibility of his marrying Helen became
more and more evident to him, she grew all the more glorious in her
culture, her quietness, her thoughtfulness. That she would break her
heart for him, he did not imagine, but he did hope--yes, hope--that she
would suffer acutely on his account.

And when Isa Marlay bravely walked through the crowd that had gathered
about the place of his confinement, and asked to see him, and he was told
that a young lady wanted to be admitted, he hoped that it might be Helen
Minorkey. When he saw that it was Isabel he was glad, partly because he
would rather have seen her than anybody else, next to Helen, and partly
because he could ask her to carry a message to Miss Minorkey. He asked
her to take from his trunk, which had already been searched by the
marshal's deputy, all the letters of Miss Minorkey, to tie them in a
package, and to have the goodness to present them to that lady with his
sincere regards.

"Shall I tell her that you are innocent?" asked Isabel, wishing to
strengthen her own faith by a word of assurance from Albert.

"Tell her--" and Albert cast down his eyes a moment in painful
reflection--"tell her that I will explain some day. Meantime, tell her to
believe what you believe about me."

"I believe that you are innocent."

"Thank you, Miss Isabel," said Albert warmly, but then he stopped and
grew r