I could not help reading her thoughts. They were easily interpreted: for she made no attempt to conceal what others might have desired to keep secret. Before I had been a week in her company, I was flattered with full evidence, that the warmest love of a warm-hearted girl was, or might be, mine.
There are few that do not sometimes stray from the path of rectitude—even knowingly and willingly. By staying longer at the station of Mr H— when convinced that the happiness of another depended on my leaving it—I was, perhaps, acting as most others would have done; but I knew I was doing wrong. It brought its own punishment, as wickedness ever will.
Jessie loved me. I was now sure of it. Several circumstances had combined to bring this misfortune upon her. Grateful for the service I had done in saving their child, her father and mother acted, as if they could not treat me with sufficient consideration. Little Rosa herself thought me the most remarkable man in the world; and was always talking of me to her sister.
It was natural for a girl like Jessie to love some one; and she had met but few, from whom she could make a choice. There was nothing strange in her young affections becoming centred on me; and they had done so. Conscience told me that I should at once take myself from her presence; but the fascination of that presence proved stronger than my sense of duty; and I remained—each day, becoming more enthralled by the spell of her beauty.
Why was it wrong in me to stay by the side of Jessie H—? Lenore Hyland had forsaken me; and why should I not love another? Where could I hope to find a woman more beautiful, more truthful, more worthy of being loved, or more capable of loving than Jessie. The task of learning to love her seemed every day to grow less difficult; and why should I bring the process to an abrupt termination?
These considerations required my most profound reflection. They obtained it—at least I thought so;—but the reflections of a man, under the fascinating influence of female beauty, are seldom guided by wisdom. Certainly mine were not, else I would not have allowed the hopes and happiness of my life to have been wrested from me by the loss of Lenore.