"You understand me, I suppose?"
"Perhaps I do, perhaps not," she answered.
"Mrs. Denison," said the young man, with increasing excitement, "I need scarcely say to you that my heart has never swerved from its first idolatry. To love Jessie Loring was an instinct of my nature—therefore, to love her once was to love her forever. You know how cruelly circumstances came with their impassable barriers. They were only barriers, and destroyed nothing. As brightly as ever burned the fires—as ardently as ever went forth love's strong impulses with every heart-beat. And her heart remained true to mine as ever was needle to the pole."
"That is a bold assertion, Paul," said Mrs. Denison, "and one that it pains me to hear you make."
"It is true; but why does it give you pain?" he asked.
"Because it intimates the existence of an understanding between you and Mrs. Dexter, and looks to the confirmation of rumors that I have always considered as without a shadow of foundation."
"My name has never been mentioned in connection with hers."
"It has."
"Mrs. Denison!"
"It is true."