e the
confidential disclosure he had intended, even if there had still been
time.

"There's mother waiting for me," she said, after an awkward pause,
pointing to the figure of Mrs. Brooks dimly outlined on the veranda.
"I suppose she was beginning to be worried about my being out alone.
She'll be so glad I met you." It didn't appear to Herbert, however,
that Mrs. Brooks exhibited any extravagant joy over the occurrence, and
she almost instantly retired with her daughter into the sitting-room,
linking her arm in Cherry's, and, as it were, empanoplying her with her
own invulnerable shawl. Herbert went to his room more dissatisfied with
himself than ever.

Two or three days elapsed without his seeing Cherry; even the
well-known rustle of her skirt in the passage was missing. On the
third evening he resolved to bear the formal terrors of the
drawing-room again, and stumbled upon a decorous party consisting of
Mrs. Brooks, the deacon, and the pastor's wife--but not Cherry. It
struck him on entering that the momentary awkwardness of the company
and the formal beginning of a new topic indicated that HE had been the
subject of their previous conversation. In this idea he continued,
through that vague spirit of opposition which attacks impulsive people
in such circumstances, to generally disagree with them on all subjects,
and to exaggerate what he chose to believe they thought objectionable
in him. He did not remain long; but learned in that brief interval
that Cherry had gone to visit a friend in Contra Costa, and would be
absent a fortnight; and he was conscious that the information was
conveyed to him with a peculiar significance.

The result of which was only to intensify his interest in the absent
Cherry, and for a week to plunge him in a sea of conflicting doubts and
resolutions. At one time he thought seriously of demanding an
explanation from Mrs. Brooks, and of confiding to her--as he had
intended to do to Cherry--his fears that his character had been
misinterpreted, and his reasons for believing so. But here he was met
by the difficulty of formulating what he wished to have explained, and
some doubts as to whether his confidences were prudent. At another
time he contemplated a serious imitation of Tappington's perfections, a
renunciation of the world, and an entire change in his habits. He
would go regularly to church--HER church, and take up Tappington's
desolate Bible-class. But here the torturing doub