n into the confidence of, so held to the heart
of, love, that it shall transform itself into love too; and, from being
the lonely tragic third, become, as the other two, one of an indivisible
trinity. Such unions of natures of especial grace have been born under
like conditions of fated intercourse, and they have been unions of a
strange beauty, the more blest by the sense of a conquest over love's
one unworthiness, its egoism. As the _egoisme a deux_ is finer than an
egoism of one, so this _egoisme a trois_, if you will, is again finer by
its additional inclusiveness.

Perhaps it had proved wiser in the end to yield to this temptation too.
But the tragic risk was one to dismay experiment. The strength of such a
union is literally the strength of its weakest link. Jenny loved both
Isabel and Theophil, and both Isabel and Theophil loved Jenny; and in
the love of the two girls, there was an element of affection that was
more impassioned than friendship. Jenny indeed loved Isabel so much that
it might well have proved that her love, with nothing but gladness,
could have added its volume to Theophil's, and the three loves, meeting
in one river of love, flowed on together to the eternal sea.

But the tragic risk! The alternative was--heart-break, death. They had
vowed to save Jenny from the lightning. Perhaps it would not destroy,
but only transfigure, after all,--yet the test was lightning; and for
whom that we love dare we venture such an ordeal, though it were to win
them Paradise?

No! Jenny must never know. And yet, perhaps, if Jenny had been told...
Well, the greatest love for another cannot guard all the gates of
chance. And, alas! these two, loyal as they were, for one unguarded
moment were to leave open a gate of their Paradise,--when we withdraw
into Paradise we should see that all the gates are closed,--and Jenny,
by a like chance, was to take into her soul one blinding glimpse of
them there.

It was the evening of the last recital, and Theophil and Isabel had gone
down, to "Zion" a few minutes before the hour arranged, Jenny, who for
some trivial reason was detained, to meet them at the hall. An audience
was already gathered there; but this Theophil and Isabel avoided,
entering the building by the minister's private entrance into his
vestry, which communicated by a dark staircase with the chapel and the
lecture-hall where the recital was to be given. There was a light in the
vestry, but no one was there, thou