“And, dear Thurston,” she said, raising her head, “it will not be so hard to bear, as you now think.  We shall see each other every Sunday in the church, and every Monday in the lecture-room.  We shall often be of the same invited company at neighbors’ houses.  Remember, also, that Christmas is coming, with its protracted festivities, when we shall see each other almost every evening, at some little neighborhood gathering.  And now I must really hurry; oh! how late I am this morning!  Good-by, dearest Thurston!”

“Good-by, my own Marian.”

Blushingly she received, his parting kiss, and hurried along the little foot-path leading to the village.

Thurston had been perfectly sincere in his resolution not to seek a private interview with Marian; and he kept it faithfully all the week, with less temptation to break it, because he did not know where to watch for her.

But Sunday came again—­and Thurston, with a little bit of human self-deception and finesse, avoided the forest path, where he had met her the preceding Sabbath, and saying to himself that he would not waylay her, took the river road, refusing to confess even to himself that he acted upon the calculation that she also would take the same road, in order to avoid meeting him in the forest.

His “calculus of probabilities” had not failed him.  He had not walked far upon the forest-shaded banks of the river before he saw Marian walking before him.  He hastened and overtook her.

At first seeing him her face flushed radiant with surprise and joy.  She seemed to think that nothing short of necromancy could have conjured him to that spot.  She had no reproaches for him, because she had no suspicion that he had trifled with his promise not to seek her.  But she expressed her astonishment.

“I did not know you ever came this way,” she said.

“Nor did I ever before, love; but I remembered my pledge, not to follow or to seek you, and so I avoided the woodland path where we met last Sunday,” said Thurston, persuading himself that he spoke the precise truth.

It is not necessary to pursue with them this walk; lovers scarcely thank us for such intrusions.  It is sufficient to say that this was not the last one.

Blinded by passion and self-deception, and acting upon the same astute calculus of probabilities, Thurston often contrived to meet Marian in places where his presence might be least expected, and most often in paths that she had taken for the express purpose of keeping out of his way.

Thus it fell that many forest walks and seashore strolls were taken, all through the lovely Indian summer weather.  And these seemed so much the result of pure accident that Marian never dreamed of complaining that his pledge had been tampered with.

But Thurston began to urge her consent to a private marriage.

From a secret engagement to a secret marriage, the transition seemed to him very easy.