And even now his passion got the better for a while
of all his good feelings and Christian resolutions. When he got back to
the Le Vert House with his unpleasant discovery he was burning like a
furnace. In spite of a rain storm just beginning and a dark night, he
strode out and walked he knew not whither. He found himself, he knew
not how, on the bank of the Ohio. He untied a skiff and pushed out into
the river. How to advance himself over his rival was his first thought.
But this darkness and this beating rain and this fierce loneliness
reminded him of that night when he had clung desperately to the
abutment of the bridge that spanned Indian Creek, and when the courage
and self-possession of Henry Stevens had rescued him. Could he be the
rival of a man who had gone down into the flood that he might save the
exhausted marquis?

Then he hated himself. Why had he not drowned that night? And with this
feeling of self-disgust added to his general mental misery and the
physical misery that the rain brought to him, there came the great
temptation to write "_Fin_," in French fashion, by jumping into the
water. But something in the influence of Priscilla and that class
meeting caused him to take a better resolution, and he returned to the
hotel.

The next day he sent for Henry Stevens to come to his room.

"Henry, I am going to leave to-night on the mail boat. I am going back
to New Orleans, and thence to France. You love Priscilla. You are a
noble man; you will make her happy. I have read your love in your face.
Meet me at the river to-night. When you are ready to be married, let me
know, that I may send some token of my love for both. Do not tell
mademoiselle that I am going; but tell her good-by for me afterward.
Now, I must pack."

Henry went out stupefied. What did it mean? And why was he half glad
that D'Entremont was going? By degrees he got the better of his
selfishness.

"Marquis d'Entremont," he said, breaking into his room, "you must not
go away. You love Priscilla. You have everything--learning, money,
travel. I have nothing."

"Nothing but a good heart, which I have not," said D'Entremont.

"I will never marry Priscilla," said Henry, "unless she deliberately
chooses to have me in preference to you."

To this arrangement, so equitable, the marquis consented, and the
matter was submitted to Priscilla by letter. Could she love either, and
if either, which? She asked a week for deliberation.

It was not eas