There were moments when he could conceive his going to Isabel, and asking her to share his life with him; but never could he endure the thought of her bearing that name which seemed so inviolably Jenny’s.  Even though Jenny had come to him in a dream and asked him to give her name to Isabel, there was still the world.  Though Jenny might understand, the world would think he had forgotten Jenny.  The minority of faithful hearts would grow sadder by his seeming apostasy, and the cynic would strengthen his pessimism by one more illustration of human inconstancy.  The world might hear that he was loving Isabel in some Aegean isle, and still deem him faithful; for grief is allowed mistresses, but with a wife it is understood to die.

No! so long as the world lasted no other woman should steal her name from Jenny’s grave.

And this was an unassailable symbol.  Here the vital principle of his faithfulness was entrenched as in an impregnable fortress.  He would see Isabel’s heart break ere she should bear Jenny’s name.

Yet while he made the vow, his love for Isabel was musical as spring within his soul, and he dared to tell himself that in God’s sight he was still Isabel’s as well as Jenny’s.

Thus it came about that one autumn day, when Isabel’s letters had lain unopened through spring and summer, in one sudden impulse of mere desire he had opened and read them,—­not as Jenny’s letters, but as messages for which he himself was hungering.  He had released the incense, and as he kissed the dear writing, he momentarily forgot that it was written to Jenny, and only remembered that it had come from Isabel.  In the snare of the incense he even accused himself for having left them unread so long, and then to think that nearly six months had gone by since the second letter had brought its half-playful reproach for forgetfulness....  “Ah!  Jenny, I’m afraid you’re a fickle little person, after all.”

How strange it seemed to hear Jenny talked to like that—­now....  Yes, of course, Jenny was dead.  Jenny was dead ... and Isabel was calling.

Was Jenny losing her power in this intoxicating fragrance of Isabel’s words—­as though for once the cross should lose its virtue in some subtle air of hellish sweetness?

O lilies from Jenny’s white coffin, O little chrysanthemum that lay in her bosom, O violets from Jenny’s tomb, pierce with your faithful breath this cloud of incense that is enwrapping Jenny’s lover.

Alas! the power of the dead is but the power of the ideal, at once the strongest and the weakest force in the world,—­a power, indeed, that prevails, but which may in some moments be shattered by the frailest whisper of the real.

Isabel was calling, and Theophil was mad to go.  Come back he might, but go he must, he would.  Yes! he was going.

There was only one possible way of spending that fevered night—­in the train; and it was in the train, speeding on to London and to Isabel, his heart on fire, his eager eyes wasting themselves on the flying darkness, that Theophil spent it.  Purposes he had none, only a desire,—­just to see Isabel again.  That immediate future was too effulgent for him to think of anything beyond it.