For, as the days went by, I could not but perceive that Alice, the girl whose life I had saved, bestowed on me very kindly glances—glances in which I, though unskilled in such language, read something deeper and—shall I say?—sweeter than mere gratitude. To her kiss—if kiss indeed it was—given under the stress of great emotion, I did not attach importance. To do so would have been, in my opinion, both unchivalrous and fatuous. But, as between man and maid, there is a light in young eyes which can hardly be mistaken by even the most cold-blooded or most ignorant. And that light I beheld, evening after evening, upon her smiling and ingenuous countenance. She was not, as I have already said, particularly pretty, or particularly clever, or particularly anything beyond being well educated and well brought up, with the good manners which come of an amiable nature and the habit of moving in the society of her equals. But for the experiences of that fearful night I should, in all probability, have met her, parted from her, and remembrance of her would have faded from my mind altogether. As it was, I could not but observe—nor deny I took a certain pleasure in observing—that she sought and preferred my company; that when we talked she led the conversation, in as far as she knew how, to tender, earnest, fanciful subjects—such as, in those days, were called ‘sentiment’—and tried to gain a response from me. And, within certain limits, my vanity being flattered though my heart was untouched, I did respond. I had no wish to mislead her; but I was weak and self-indulgent in that, the present being agreeable, I let things drift. I do not pretend to justify, or indeed quite to understand my own state of mind at that period. I was still under the influence of my trouble and disappointment about Hartover, the bitterness of my own inability to help the dear boy, and save him from the consequences of his own ill-judged action. I trembled for his future. I had written to him, and oh! what a letter to write. To be at once truthful and moderate required all my judgment and tact. I could not approve, yet I feared to alienate him by expression of my real feeling. My love for Nellie Braithwaite told on me, too—and the temptation to profit by Hartover’s marriage and press my own suit. Thus, perplexed and unhappy, I fell, I own, from high standards of endeavour. The things dearest to me I had failed in, or knew were beyond my grasp. A cheaper, commoner way of success and of happiness—happiness, that is, of a sort—lay open to me. Should I fling aside impossible ideals, and take it?