"Not at all. I am going to Boston. There are your checks once more, and here is your train and seat," he added, as he accompanied her to it. Then he lifted his hat, and was about to depart, when she said: "Since you are on the same train, perhaps you will venture to take this seat near me. I never was curious about a gentleman's business before; but it strikes me as a rather odd coincidence that you are going to Boston to-day."
"A great many people go to Boston," he replied.
"It's for my sake you are taking this long journey, Mr. Stanton," she said, regretfully.
"Yes," he replied, in the same quiet, undemonstrative manner that he had maintained towards her for some weeks past; "this journey is for your sake, and for your sake I shall take a very different journey through life from the one I had marked out for myself. I know your sad story, Miss Burton. I expect nothing from you, I hope for nothing, and I shall never ask anything, except a little confidence on your part, so that I can render you an occasional service. Never for a moment imagine that I am cherishing hopes that I know well you cannot reward."
"Mr. Stanton, this is beyond my comprehension!"
"There seems to me nothing strange or unnatural in it," he said. "You found me a pleasure-loving animal, and through your influence I think I am becoming somewhat different. You have taught me that there is a higher and better world than that of sense. How good a work I can do in life I will let the years prove as they pass. But I do not think my feelings will ever change towards you, save as time deepens and strengthens them. Van thinks all the world of you, as well he may; but his life will be very happy and full of many interest. I shall think of you alone, and the work I do for your sake until I can add another motive. Of course I believe in a heaven—such lives as your make one necessary; and I mean to find a way of getting there. In the meantime, you are my motive; but my regard for you shall be so very unobtrusive that I trust you will not resent it, and the thought of my unseen care and watchfulness may in time come to be a pleasant one."
There was nothing in his tone or manner to indicate that to their fellow-travelers that he was not speaking on the most ordinary topic; and he looked her full in the face with his clear dark eyes, in which she saw only truth and faithfulness.
She was very, very deeply touched, and she could not keep the tears out of her eyes as she leaned towards him and said in tones that no others could hear:
"I am no longer the friendless orphan I was when I came to the Lake House. In Mr. Van Berg I have found a friend whom I can trust; in you, Ik Stanton, a brother that I can love."
If the reader's patience has not failed him up to this long-deferred moment, it shall now be rewarded by a few brief, concluding words.