To Madge his letters were a source of mingled pain and pleasure, but the former predominated.  In every line they breathed an affection which could never satisfy.  Coldness or indifference could not have so assured her that her love was hopeless; and when she sat down to reply, the language of her heart was so unlike that which she must write as to make her feel almost guilty of deliberate deception.  Correspondence made him too vividly present, and she was learning that she had the power, not of forgetting him, but of so occupying her mind with tasks for his sake as to attain serenity.  The days were made short by efforts of which he deemed her incapable, and weariness brought rest at night.  But when she sat down with her pen, confronting him and not what she sought to do for him, her heart sank.  He was too near and dear, yet too remote, even for hope.

This emotion is, however, the most hardy of plants, and although she had often assured herself that she had never entertained it or had any reason to do so, almost before she was aware she found it growing in her heart.  Business still kept Graydon abroad, although a year had passed.  There were no indications that he was pressing his suit with Miss Wildmere, and our heroine’s mirror and the eyes of others began to tell her that the confident belle would not now bestow a glance so cold and indifferent as to mean, “You can be nothing to him or to any one.”  Moreover, Miss Wildmere’s coveted beauty might prove an ally.  One so attractive would be sought, perhaps won, before Graydon returned, and absence might have taught him that his regard had been little more than admiration.  Naturally Madge would not be inclined to think well of one who had brought so cruel an experience into her life; but, prejudice apart, the society girl had given evidence of a type of womanhood not very high.  Even Graydon, in his allusions, had suggested a character repulsive to Madge.  A woman “as hard to capture and hold as a ‘Bedouin’” was not at all her ideal.  The words presented to her one who was either calculating or capricious, either heartless or fickle.

“Truly,” she thought, “if there was ever a man who merited whole-hearted, lifelong constancy, it is Graydon Muir; and if he even imagines Miss Wildmere incapable of this, why should he think further of her?  Perhaps while beyond the spell of her beauty he has formed a truer estimate of her character, and has abandoned all thought of her as a mocking dream.  Perhaps—­”

Of what possibilities will not a young girl dream at the dictation of her heart?  And as she saw the sharp lines of her profile softening into loveliness, the color fluctuating in her cheeks even at her thoughts, her thin, feeble arms growing white and firm, and the rounded grace of womanhood appearing in all her form, she began to hope that she could endure comparison with Miss Wildmere, even on her lower plane of material beauty.  But Madge had too much mind to be content with Miss Wildmere’s standard.  She coveted outward attractiveness chiefly that the casket might secure attention to its gems.  The days of languid, desultory reading and study were over, and she determined to know at least a few things well.