"Faix, mum, I know nothin' at all. Mr. Willard druv home loike one possessed, and got out at the door, and that's the last oi've seen uv 'im." The lady received the significant tidings with mingled anxiety and satisfaction. Two things were evident. He had become more interested in Miss Vosburgh than he had admitted, and she, by strange good fortune, had refused him. "It was a piece of folly that had to come in some form, I suppose," she soliloquized, "although I did not think Willard anything like so sure to perpetrate it as most young men. Well, the girl has saved me not a little trouble, for, of course, I should have been compelled to break the thing up;" and she sat down to watch and wait. She waited so long that anxiety decidedly got the better of her satisfaction. Meanwhile the object of her thoughts was passing through an experience of which he had never dreamed. In one brief hour his complacency, pride, and philosophy of life had been torn to tatters. He saw himself as Marian saw him, and he groaned aloud in his loathing and humiliation. He looked back upon his superior airs as ridiculous, and now felt that he would rather be a private in Strahan's company than the scorned and rejected wretch that he was. The passionate nature inherited from his mother was stirred to its depths. Even the traits which he believed to be derived from his father, and which the calculating lawyer had commended, had secured the young girl's most withering contempt; and he saw how she contrasted him with her father and Mr. Lane,--yes, even with little Strahan. In her bitter words he heard the verdict of the young men with whom he had associated, and of the community. Throughout the summer he had dwelt apart, wrapped in his own self-sufficiency and fancied superiority. His views had been of gradual growth, and he had come to regard them as infallible, especially when stamped with the approval of his father's old friend; but the scathing words, yet ringing in his ears, showed him that brave, conscientious manhood was infinitely more than his wealth and birth. As if by a revelation from heaven he saw that he had been measuring everything with the little rule of self, and in consequence he had become so mean and small that a generous-hearted girl had shrunk from him in loathing. Then in bitter anger and resentment he remembered how he was trammelled by his oath to his mother. It seemed to him that his life was blighted by this pledge and a false education. There was no path to her side who would love and honor only a MAN. At last the mere physical manifestations of passion and excitement began to pass away, and he felt that he was acting almost like one insane as he entered the house. Mrs. Merwyn met him, but he said, hoarsely, "I cannot talk with you to-night." "Willard, be rational. You are wet through. You will catch your death in these clothes." "Nothing would suit me better, as I feel now;" and he broke away.