"Ah, well, let the future be what it may, one cannot be utterly unhappy who has loved such a man. If he is willing to give his life up for me, I surely can get him to give up his evil, wayward tendencies, and then I must be content."
She now began to experience reaction from her strong excitement, and wearily made her way back to the house.
Her father met her at the door, and exclaimed, "Why, Alice, where have you been? You look ready to sink!"
"I have been to the boat-house, father," she replied, in a low, quick tone; "and I wish you would go there to-morrow, for you will there learn how cruelly we have misjudged Mr. Harcourt."
"But, my child, I am troubled about you. You need quiet and rest after all you have passed through"; and he hastily brought her a glass of wine.
"I needed more the assurance that my old friend and playmate was not what we thought this morning," she said, with drooping eyes.
"Well, my darling, we will make amends right royally. He will be here to-morrow evening, and you shall have no occasion to find fault with me. But please take care of yourself. You do not realize what you have passed through, and I fear you are yet to suffer the consequences."
But more exhilarating than the wine which her father placed to her lips was the memory of what she had seen. Hers was one of those spiritual natures that suffer more through the mind than through the body. She encountered her greatest peril in the fear of Harcourt's unworthiness.
Letters in the evening mail summoned her father to the city on the morrow, and he left her with many injunctions to be very quiet. It was evident that his heart and life were bound up in her.
But as the day grew bright and mild she again found her way to the boat-house. With greater accuracy she marked his every hasty step from the house to the shore. Harcourt little thought in his wild alarm that he was leaving such mute but eloquent advocates.