My very heart seemed to stand still, and I think my pallor alarmed her; but feeling that she had gone too far, she continued hurriedly, taking a letter from her pocket:
"I expect my friend to-night. He's been absent, and now writes that he will—"
I shrank involuntarily as if from a blow, and with her face full of distress she stopped abruptly.
Summoning the whole strength of my manhood, I rallied sufficiently to say, in a voice that I knew was unnatural from the stress I was under:
"I congratulate you. I trust you may be very happy."
"I had hoped—" she began. "I would be if I saw that you were happy."
"You are always hoping," I replied, trying to laugh, "that I may become sane and rational. Haven't you given that up yet? I shall be very happy to-morrow, and will drink to the health of you both."
She looked at me very dubiously, and the trouble in her face did not pass away. "Let me read to you," she said abruptly. "I brought with me Hawthorne's 'Mosses from an Old Manse.' They are not too familiar, I trust?"
"I cannot hear them too often," I said, nerving myself as if for torture.
She began to read that exquisite little character study, "The Great Stone Face." Her voice was sweet and flexible, and varied with the thought as if the words had been set to music. At first I listened with delight to hear my favorite author so perfectly interpreted; but soon, too soon, every syllable added to my sense of unutterable loss.