lly, silly! Oh, how disgusting!" and if at that moment
Breckon were really coming up to sit by her, she would blush to her
hair, and wish to run away, and failing the force for this, would sit
cold and blank to his civilities, and have to be skilfully and gradually
talked back to self-respect and self-tolerance.

The recurrence of these reveries and their consequence in her made it
difficult for him to put in effect the promise he had given himself in
Miss Rasmith's presence. If Ellen had been eager to welcome his coming,
it would have been very simple to keep away from her, but as she
appeared anxious to escape him, and had to be entreated, as it were,
to suffer his society, something better than his curiosity was piqued,
though that was piqued, too. He believed that he saw her lapsing again
into that morbid state from which he had seemed once able to save her,
and he could not help trying again. He was the more bound to do so by
the ironical observance of Miss Rasmith, who had to be defied first, and
then propitiated; certainly, when she saw him apparently breaking faith
with her, she had a right to some sort of explanation, but certainly
also she had no right to a blind and unreasoning submission from him.
His embarrassment was heightened by her interest in Miss Kenton,
whom, with an admirable show of now finding her safe from Breckon's
attractions, she was always wishing to study from his observation. What
was she really like? The girl had a perfect fascination for her; she
envied him his opportunities of knowing her, and his privileges of
making that melancholy face light up with that heart-breaking smile, and
of banishing that delicious shyness with which she always seemed to meet
him. Miss Rasmith had noticed it; how could she help noticing it?

Breckon wished to himself that she had been able to help noticing it, or
were more capable of minding her own business than she showed herself,
and his heart closed about Ellen with a tenderness that was dangerously
indignant. At the same time he felt himself withheld by Miss Rasmith's
witness from being all to the girl that he wished to be, and that he now
seemed to have been in those first days of storm, while Miss Rasmith and
her mother were still keeping their cabin. He foresaw that it would end
in Miss Rasmith's sympathetic nature not being able to withhold itself
from Ellen's need of cheerful companionship, and he was surprised, as
little as he was pleased, one morn