With Dr. Sommers’s tidings Graydon saw that a shadow had fallen on Madge’s face, and his manner at once became gravely and gently considerate.  There were allusions to the dead girl in the service at the chapel, where she had been an attendant, and Graydon saw half-shed tears in Madge’s eyes more than once.

She drove out with him in the lovely summer afternoon to the gray old farmhouse.  The thoughts of each were busy—­they had not much to say to each other—­and Madge was grateful, for his quiet consideration for her mood.  It was another proof that the man she loved had not a shallow, coarse-fibred nature.  With all his strength he could be a gentle, sympathetic presence—­thinking of her first, thoughtfully respecting her unspoken wishes, and not a garrulous egotist.

He in turn wondered at his own deep content and at the strange and unexpected turn that his affairs had taken.  He not only dwelt on what had happened, but on what might have happened—­what he had hoped for and sought to attain.  He remembered with shame that he had even wished that Madge had not been at the resort, so that he might be less embarrassed in his suit to Miss Wildmere.  From his first waking moment in the morning he had been conscious of an immeasurable sense of relief at his escape.  He felt now that he had never deeply loved Miss Wildmere—­that she had never touched the best feelings of his heart, because not capable of doing so.  But he had admired her.  He had been a devotee of society, and she had been to him the beautiful culmination of that phase of life.  He saw he had endowed her with the womanly qualities which would make her the light of a home as well as of the ballroom, but he had also seen that the woman which his fancy had created did not exist.  There is a love which is the result of admiration and illusion, and this will often cling to its imperfect object to the end.  Such was not the case with Graydon, however.  His first motive had been little more than an ambition to seek the most brilliant of social gems with which to crown a successful life; but he was too much of a man to marry a belle as such and be content.  He must love her as a woman also, and he had loved what he imagined Stella Wildmere to be.  Now he felt, however, like a lapidary who, while gloating over a precious stone, is suddenly shown that it is worthless paste.  He may have valued it highly an hour before; now he throws it away in angry disgust.  But this simile only in part explains Graydon’s feelings.  He not only recognized Miss Wildmere’s mercenary character and selfish spirit, but also the power she would have had to thwart his life and alienate him from his brother and Madge.  While she was not the pearl for which he might give all, she could easily have become the active poison of his life.

“Oh,” he thought, “how blessed is this content with sweet sister Madge—­sister in spite of all she says—­compared with brief, feverish pleasure in an engagement with such a sham of a woman, or the mad chaos of financial disaster which my suit might have brought about!” and he unconsciously gave a profound sigh of satisfaction.