t China-berry on whose gnarled protruding
roots she rested an arm languidly, Therese looked out over the river
and gave herself up to doubts and misgivings. She first took exception
with herself for that constant interference in the concerns of other
people. Might not this propensity be carried too far at times? Did the
good accruing counterbalance the personal discomfort into which she
was often driven by her own agency? What reason had she to know that a
policy of non-interference in the affairs of others might not after
all be the judicious one? As much as she tried to vaguely generalize,
she found her reasoning applying itself to her relation with Hosmer.

The look which she had surprised in Fanny's face had been a painful
revelation to her. Yet could she have expected other, and should she
have hoped for less, than that Fanny should love her husband and he in
turn should come to love his wife?

Had she married Hosmer herself! Here she smiled to think of the storm
of indignation that such a marriage would have roused in the parish.
Yet, even facing the impossibility of such contingency, it pleased her
to indulge in a short dream of what might have been.

If it were her right instead of another's to watch for his coming and
rejoice at it! Hers to call him husband and lavish on him the love
that awoke so strongly when she permitted herself, as she was doing
now, to invoke it! She felt what capability lay within her of rousing
the man to new interests in life. She pictured the dawn of an
unsuspected happiness coming to him: broadening; illuminating; growing
in him to answer to her own big-heartedness.

Were Fanny, and her own prejudices, worth the sacrifice which she and
Hosmer had made? This was the doubt that bade fair to unsettle her;
that called for a sharp, strong out-putting of the will before she
could bring herself to face the situation without its accessions of
personalities. Such communing with herself could not be condemned as a
weakness with Therese, for the effect which it left upon her strong
nature was one of added courage and determination.

When she reached Marie Louise's cabin again, twilight, which is so
brief in the South, was giving place to the night.

Within the cabin, the lamp had already been lighted, and Marie Louise
was growing restless at Therese's long delay.

"Ah _Grosse tante_, I'm so tired," she said, falling into a chair near
the door; not relishing the warmth of the room after h