“When I love,” he was saying, “she must fill full the measure of my dreams.  She must uplift me.  She must have beauty and sweetness; she must choose the truth as that bird chooses the flowers.  And to such an one I will give worship without end.”

Years after, she had come across the phrase again in a poem.  And at the words the same picture had come to her, and a sudden hunger for love, for such love,—­the love she had missed in life,—­had seized her.  But it was then too late.  She had taken in its place respect and companionship, a great establishment and social prominence.

For a moment her mother, sitting calm and calculating in the little room at Ridgely, foretelling her future and teaching, with commercial exactness, the advantages of such a union, flashed before her; and then once more for a moment came the heart-hunger for what she had missed.

Why should she not take the gift thus held out to her?  She liked him and he liked her.  She trusted him.  It was the best chance of happiness she would ever have.  Besides, she could help him.  He had powers, and she could give him the opportunity to develop them.  Love would come.  Who could tell?  Perhaps, the other happiness might yet be hers.  Why should she throw it away?  Would not life bring the old dream yet?  Could it bring it?  Here was this man whom she had known all her life, who filled almost the measure of her old dream, at her feet again.  But was this love?  Was this the “worship with out end”?  As her heart asked the question, and she lifted her eyes to his face, the answer came with it:  No.  He was too cool, too calm.  This was but friendship and respect, that same “safe foundation” she had tried.  This might do for some, but not for him.  She had seen him, and she knew what he could feel.  She had caught a glimpse of him that evening when Ferdy Wickersham was so attentive to the little Huntington girl.  She had seen him that night in the theatre when the fire occurred.  He was in love; but it was with Lois Huntington, and happiness might yet be his.

The next moment Alice’s better nature reasserted itself.  The picture of the young girl sitting with her serious face and her trustful eyes came back to her.  Lois, moved by her sympathy and friendship, had given her a glimpse of her true heart, which she knew she would have died before she would have shown another.  She had confided in her absolutely.  She heard the tones of her voice: 

“Why, Mrs. Lancaster, I dream of him.  He seems to me so real, so true.  For such a man I could—­I could worship him!” Then came the sudden lifting of the veil; the straight, confiding, appealing glance, the opening of the soul, and the rush to her knees as she appealed for him.

It all passed through Mrs. Lancaster’s mind as she looked far away over the slumbering sea, while Keith waited for her answer.

When she glanced up at Keith he was leaning over the rail, looking far away, his face calm and serious.  What was he thinking of?  Certainly not of her.