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Priscilla’s mother was not well enough to come to the table, and she had to entertain both. It was hard for either of the guests to be cheerful, but Priscilla at least was not depressed by the approaching decision. Equally attentive to both, no one could have guessed in which direction her preference lay.

“We must enjoy this supper,” she said. “We must celebrate Henry’s recovery and the goodness of his nurse together. Let’s put the future out of sight and be happy.”

Her gayety proved infectious, and as she served her friends with her own hands they both abandoned themselves to the pleasure of the moment and talked of cheerful and amusing things.

Only when they rose to leave did she allow her face to become sober, and even then the twilight of her joyousness lingered in her smile as she spoke, facing them both:

“How I have enjoyed your coming! I wanted us to have this supper together before coming to the subject you spoke of before leaving. I shall have to say what will give you both pain.” There was a moment’s pause. Then she resumed:

“The matter has been decided for me. I can marry neither of you. My father and all my brothers and sisters have died of consumption. I am the only one left of five. In a few months–” She lowered her voice, which trembled a little as she glanced toward her mother’s room–“my poor mother will be childless.”

For the first time, in the imperfect light, they noticed the flushed cheeks, and for the first time they detected the quick breathing. When they walked away the two friends were nearer than ever by virtue of a common sorrow.

And as day after day they visited her in company, the public, and particularly that part of the public which peeped out of Miss Nancy More’s windows, was not a little mystified. Miss More thought a girl who was drawing near to the solemn and awful realities of eternal bliss should let such worldly vanities as markusses alone!

A singular change came over Priscilla in one regard. As the prospect of life faded out, she was no longer in danger of being tempted by the title and wealth of the marquis. She could be sure that her heart was not bribed. And when this restraint of conscience abnormally sensitive was removed, it became every day more and more clear to her that she loved D’Entremont. Of all whom she had ever known, he only was a companion. And as he brought her choice passages from favorite writers every day, and as her mind grew with unwonted rapidity under the influence of that strange disease which shakes down the body while it ripens the soul, she felt more and more that she was growing out of sympathy with all that was narrow and provincial in her former life, and into sympathy with the great world, and with Antoine d’Entremont, who was the representative of the world to her.

This rapidly growing gulf between his own intellectual life and that of Priscilla Henry Stevens felt keenly. But there is one great compensation for a soul like Henry’s. Men and women of greater gifts might outstrip him in intellectual growth. He could not add one cell to his brain, or make the slightest change in his temperament. But neither the marquis nor Priscilla could excel him in that generosity which does not always go with genius, and which is not denied to the man of the plainest gifts. He wrote to the marquis:

“MY DEAR FRIEND: You are a good and generous friend. I have
read in her voice and her eyes what the decision of Priscilla
must have been. If I had not been blind, I ought to have seen
it before in the difference between us. Now I know that it
will be a comfort to you to have that noble woman die your
wife. I doubt not it will be a comfort to her. Do you think
it will be any consolation to me to have been an obstacle
in the way? I hope you do not think so meanly of me, and
that you and Priscilla will give me the only consolation
I can have in our common sorrow–the feeling that I have
been able to make her last days more comfortable and your
sorrow more bearable. If you refuse, I shall always
reproach myself.