"Well, if you prefer another comparison," said Alice, smiling faintly,--"gone out like yesterday's fire." "Fire lurks a long time in the ashes unseen, my dear." Alice dropped her needle and looked steadily at her companion. "I am young," she said; "yet I have outgrown the school-girl period. The current of my life has flowed in a deep channel: the shallow little brook may fancy its first spring-freshet to be a Niagara; but my feelings have swelled with no transient overflow. I gave my utmost love and devotion to a man I thought worthy. He treated me with neglect, and at last falsified his word in offering his hand to another, I do not hate him. I have none of that alchemy which changes despised love to gall. But I could never forgive him, nor trust him again. And if he, who seemed always so frank, so earnest, so tender, so single in his aims,--if he could not be trusted, I do not know where I could rest my heart and say,--'Here I am safe, whatever betide!'" It was a strange thing for Alice to speak in such an exalted strain, and she trembled as she tried to resume her sewing. The thread slipped and knotted; the needle broke and pricked her finger; and then, feeling her cheeks begin to glow, she laid down her work and turned to the window. "Don't lose _all_ faith, Alice; there are true hearts in the world. Perhaps this lover of yours, now, has repented and is striving to find you. Or you may have been misinformed as to the extent of his treachery. To take your own simile, you don't accuse the brook of fickleness merely because it eddies around under some flowery bank; after it has made the circle, it keeps on its steady course." Alice only shook her head, still keeping her face averted to conceal the tremor of her lips. "But you haven't told me who this man is. How odd it would be, if I knew him!" "I would rather not have you know. The secret isn't a fatal one, to be sure; but I prefer to keep it." Suddenly she stepped back from the window, ashy pale, and gasping hysterically. Mrs. Sandford rose hastily to assist her, and, as she did so, noticed her old acquaintance, Mr. Greenleaf, on the opposite sidewalk. She helped Alice to her seat and brought her a glass of water, and, as she did so, in an instant the long track of the past was illumined as by a flash of lightning. She saw the reason for Greenleaf's conduct towards her sister-in-law, Marcia. She remembered his early fascination, his long, vacillating resistance, his brief engagement, and the stormy scene when it was broken. She had seen the thread of Fate spun for each, without knowing that invisible strands connected them. She had begun to read a tale of sorrow, but the page was torn, and now she had finished it upon the chance-found fragment; the irregular and jagged edges fitted together like mosaic-work.