If she had been sincere in her religious experiences, and in all her words and actions in that direction, how could he help believing that she was equally sincere in the language of tone and eye, which had revealed her heart so plainly that even he, who was the last in the world to presume, had come to think that she loved him? And yet he was about to make his life, and perhaps hers also, one long regret, because he had quietly assumed that she was one of those women whose life depends on surroundings, and to whose souls mere things can minister more than love and the consciousness of an heroic devotion to a sacred cause. Lottie had skilfully and clearly given the impression she sought to convey; and this impression, uniting with the student's love, formed a combination whose assaults caused his supposed inflexible purpose to waver. Lottie's quick intuition enabled her to see that she had led him far enough at present, while they were in such close proximity to jealous, observant eyes and attentive ears, and so, with equal tact, she led his thoughts to more tranquillizing topics. She was employing all the skill and finesse of which she had been mistress in the days of her insincerity and heartless coquetry. These gifts were still hers, as much as ever. But now they were under the control of conscience, and would henceforth be used to secure and promote happiness, not to destroy it. And she felt that she had need of tact and skill. The situation was not so very peculiar. Many had passed through just such experiences before, but have all passed on to lives of consummated happiness? She loved the man at her side devotedly, and was perfectly aware of his love for her, and yet woman's silence was upon her lips. They were soon to separate, not to meet again for many years, if ever. She could not speak. If from any motive, even the noblest, he did not speak, how could she meet the long, lonely future, in which every day would make more clear the dreary truth that she had missed her true life and happiness?--missed it through no necessity that might in the end bring resignation, but through a mistake,--the unselfish blundering of a man who wrongly supposed she could be happier without than with him. It was her delicate task to show him, without abating one jot of woman's jealous reserve, that she was capable of all the self-sacrifice to which he looked forward, and that, as his uncle had told him, he had no right to sacrifice her happiness.