When Greenleaf parted from Marcia, the morning before, he intended to wait a week at least before telling her of his changed feelings.  He did not know what a burden he had undertaken to carry; he staggered under it, like the pilgrim in Bunyan’s immortal story.  Besides, after he had once come to a determination, he was impatient to see Alice and implore her forgiveness.  Minutes were days while he waited.  To pass a week in this way was not to be thought of, unless by means of ether or mesmerism he could fly from himself and find peace in oblivion.

“My dear George,” Marcia began, “it is so kind of you to come with your sympathy!  We are dreadfully cast down.  What is to be done I don’t know.”

“You surprise me!  What has happened?  I have scarcely been out of my studio since I last saw you.”

“But it’s in all the papers!”

“I haven’t seen a paper.”

“What I told you yesterday has come to pass.  Henry has failed; so has the Vortex,—­and Mr. Fayerweather, the President,—­and Mr. Stearine,—­and everybody else, I believe.  We shall probably leave the house and take lodgings.”

Every word was a pang to Greenleaf.  Again his heart, full of sympathy for the woman’s distress, whispered, “Wait! don’t wound the stricken deer!” But he hugged his resolve and steeled himself against pity.

“I am truly sorry to hear of your brother’s misfortunes.  But with his talents and reputation, and with his troops of friends in business circles as well as in the various charitable societies, it cannot be that he will long be depressed.  He will work his way back to his old position, or even a higher one.”

Marcia shook her head doubtfully.  She had not heard the rumors affecting her brother’s integrity, but she saw that his manly resolution was gone, that he was vascillating, broken-spirited, and needed but little more trouble to make him imbecile.

“I was thinking of a case of conscience, as I came here,” said Greenleaf.  “It was, How far a promise is binding, when it involves a lasting and irretrievable wrong in its fulfilment.”

Marcia looked at him in dumb astonishment.  He continued:—­

“Suppose that you were to find, by-and-by, that your affections had cooled towards me,—­that you discovered incompatabilities of taste and temper,—­that you felt sure a true union of souls was impossible,—­that marriage would be only a mockery?”

“Dear George, how you frighten me!  Why do you ask such dreadful questions in such a solemn way?  You know I love you, heart and soul.”

“But consider the question as an abstract one.  I ask you only to suppose the case.  Should you thrust conscience into the cellar, stifle its outcries, and give your consent to a profanation of holy wedlock?”

“I can’t suppose the case.  And I don’t see the use of torturing one’s self with imaginary evils.  The real troubles of life are quite enough to bear.”