Then he noticed that very few lights were visible in the neighboring houses, and consulting his watch by the light of a street-lamp, found to his surprise that it was near midnight. He recollected, too, that Floy (she was still Floy to him) had looked very weary when they left the Centennial grounds together some hours before. “Poor darling!” he said, “I’m a brute to blame her!” and went on his way, impatient for the morrow that he might seek the desired interview. Ethel had sat up expecting him, till the lateness of the hour convinced her that he was not coming; then she had retired, weary in body and a little heavy at heart lest some evil had befallen him, yet ridiculing and scolding herself for the folly of such fears. “Oh, love! how hard a fate is thine! Obtained with trouble, and with pain preserv’d, Never at rest.” When they met the next day, something seemed to have come between them. “What was it?” Ethel vainly asked herself. Something light as air; something so intangible that she could not give it a name. A change had come upon Espy, but when questioned he insisted that nothing was wrong, sometimes asking, almost testily, why she should think there was; then, in sudden penitence for his ill-humor, he would be more devoted than ever for a time, but presently fall back into moody silence. He was still dwelling upon the information his father had given him, still querying as to his affianced’s motives in concealing the facts from him, and alternating between anger and admiration as the one or the other seemed to him the more likely to have influenced her. “Why will she not be open with me?” he asked himself a hundred times; “then there would be no trouble.” And she was thinking the same in regard to him. I am inclined to think that they were both in the right there and that perfect openness between married people and lovers would save a great deal of trouble, heartache, and estrangement. As it was, these two began to reap a bountiful harvest of each. Espy slackened his attentions, absented himself frequently, and when he returned to her side, Ethel’s manner was constrained and cold. The girl poured her griefs, anxieties, and perplexities into no mortal ear. She would as soon have thought of telling them to a child as to Madame Le Conte; and so, feeling the need of a sympathizing friend and counsellor, she took to longing and looking for her mother more earnestly and constantly than she had since the return of her betrothed. “Other girls have their mothers to go to,” she would sigh to herself. “Ah, that I had mine!” Espy was not now always by her side, and on those days when she found herself alone at the Exposition she would go to Memorial Hall, and if able to make her way through the crowd to the place where his paintings hung, would stand and gaze, through gathering tears, upon Mrs. Kemper’s portrait.