At last he broke the deep silence:
"What am I to say—what am I to do, mother, if—if—your surmises be actually true?"
"They are not surmises, my boy," returned his mother; "they are truths."
"You know that I like Jessie," he went on, huskily; "but as for any other sentiment—why, it would be impossible. My life will always be tinged with the bitter sorrow of that other love-dream which was so cruelly shattered. I—I wish to Heaven you had not told me your suspicions about Jessie, mother."
"Her secret fell from my lips in an unguarded moment," she answered, slowly, "and I am sorry you know all. Yet it must be a source of comfort to you to know that although Dorothy Glenn was false to you, there is one heart which beats only for you."
Jack started to his feet, a dull pallor creeping into his face as he drew back from his mother's touch.
"Dorothy is not false to me!" he cried. "If an angel from heaven should tell me so I would not believe it. She is my betrothed bride. She wears my betrothal-ring upon her little hand. No matter where she is, she is true to me—true as God's promise. Shame has caused her to hide herself from me, because she was so foolish as to go with another on an excursion on Labor Day. But I have forgiven all that long ago. Oh, Heaven! if I could but let her know it!"
Mrs. Garner shook her head.
"A young girl who can leave you for months without a word does not care for you, my boy," she answered, sadly. "Surely there is great truth in the words that 'Love is blind,' if you can not be made to see this."
Still the noble lover shook his head. There was no power on earth strong enough to shake his faith in Dorothy's love.