his soul rejoiced over that, he yet could not help thinking of himself.  Listening to the voices of the lovers in the parlor, he thought how he and Amy used to make love, and how it was all over, perhaps forever over.  He smiled a little as he remembered how his Charlotte had asked him to go with her to meet her lover.  Gentle and affectionate to his family as he was, Carroll was essentially masculine.  He could not in the least understand how the girl felt.  He felt a little anxious lest the child should not really love Anderson, because she hesitated, since he could see no other reason for her hesitation.  However, when, about eleven o’clock, he heard the stir of approaching departure, and went hurriedly into the hall in order to intercept Anderson before he went, one glimpse of the girl’s little face reassured him.  She seemed to at once have grown older and younger.  She was reflective, and fairly beaming with utmost anticipations.  She looked at Anderson as he had never seen her look at any one.  He had doubted a little about Ina; he had no doubt whatever about Charlotte.  “She is in love with him, fast enough,” he said to himself.  He spoke to Anderson, and asked to have a word with him before he went.

“Come back into the parlor a moment, if you please,” he said.  “I have a word to say to you.”

Anderson followed him into the room.  He already had on his overcoat.  Carroll stood close to him and spoke in a low voice.  His face was ghastly when he had finished, but he looked proudly at the other man.

“Now it is for you to say whether you will advance or retreat, for I think that, under the circumstances, nobody could say that you did not do the last with honor,” he concluded.

Anderson, who had also turned pale, stared at him a second, and his look was a question.

“There is absolutely nothing else that I can do,” replied Carroll, simply; “it is my only course.”

Anderson held out his hand.  “I shall be proud to have your daughter for my wife,” he said.

“Remember she is not to know,” Carroll said.

“Do you think the ignorance preferable to the anxiety?”

“I don’t know.  I cannot have her know.  None of them shall know.  I have trusted you,” Carroll said, with a sort of agonized appeal.  “I had, as a matter of honor, to tell you, but no one else,” he continued, still in his voice which seemed strained to lowness.  “I had to trust you.”

“You will never find your trust misplaced,” replied Anderson, gravely, “but it will be hard for her.”

“You can comfort her,” Carroll said, with a painful smile, in which was a slight jealousy, the feeling of a man outside all his loves of life.

“When?” asked Anderson, in a whisper.

“Monday.”

“She will, of course, come straight to my mother, and it can all be settled as soon as possible afterwards.  There will be no occasion to wait.”

“Amy may wish to come,” said Carroll, “and Anna.”