Although Elizabeth had been so brave before Archdale, yet as soon as he had gone she sank into her chair and covered her face with her hands, as if by this she could shut out the visions of him from her mind.  She lived in the land of the Puritans, and Indiana had not been discovered.  She knew that those words which ought to have been so sacred but which she had spoken so lightly were no longer light to her, but that in the depths of her heart they weighed like lead and gave her a sense of guilt that she could not throw off.  Even if they proved nothing in law, they had already brought a terrible punishment, and if,—­if—.  With a low cry she started up.  Life had grown black again.  But she was not accustomed to give way to emotions, still less to forebodings.  In a few moments she went back to her embroidery, and to Mrs. Eveleigh.

Archdale left Mr. Royal’s house with a new comprehension of the woman he had married in jest.  Somehow, he had always considered that Katie and he were really the only sufferers.  Young, petted, rich, and handsome, it had not come forcibly home to him before, however much his courtesy might have assumed it, that this young woman whom, though he thought she did well enough, he had no high opinion of, could actually suffer in the idea of being his wife.  But he saw it now through all her brave bearing, and his vanity received its death-wound that morning.

Three days afterwards he was at Katie’s home; he tried to feel that he had the old right to visit her.  “Your friend is so brave,” he said, “she puts courage into me.  Katie, why don’t you feel so, too?”

“Ah!” said the girl looking at him tearfully, “how can you ask that?  It is she who has the right to you, and I have not.”

“She wants it as little as mortal can,” he answered.  “I think except as your betrothed she does not even like me very well, although she was so kind when I came away.”  And he repeated Elizabeth’s parting prophesy.

“She and I are the two extremes,” returned the girl.  “If Mr. Harwin is a minister, it will seem to me, as I told you, just as if you and Elizabeth had been divorced.”

“Nonsense, love, you cannot separate what has never been joined together.”  He kissed away the tears that brimmed over from Katie’s eyes.  Yet as he did so, he was not sure that he had the right to do it, for the shadow of another woman seemed to come between them.  He had confessed his dread to Elizabeth, but to this girl it was impossible; to her he must be all confidence.  How different were these two women toward whom he stood in such peculiar relations, betrothed to one, possibly married to the other.  If this last were true which of them would suffer the more?  A week ago his imagination would not have seized upon Elizabeth’s feelings at all; now he was convinced that it would be no less hard for her than for Katie; hard through her friendship and her pride.  But this one’s tender little heart would break.  After all, it was only of her that he could think.  The waiting was growing unendurable.  Yet he felt that his father was right when he said that the easiest way, the shortest in the end, was to prove if possible that Harwin’s story of his vocation was fabricated.  Indeed, there was no case for appeal to the Court unless that were established.  Let that fall through, and the lovers were free to marry.