Mercy stood still, and looked after him for a moment with a blank sense of bewilderment.  His sudden change of tone and manner smote her like a blow.  She comprehended in a flash the subterfuge in it, and her soul recoiled from it with incredulous pain.  “Why should he be afraid to have people see us together?  What does it mean?  What reason can he possibly have?” Scores of questions like these crowded on her mind, and hurt her sorely.  Her conjecture even ran so wide as to suggest the possibility of his being engaged to another woman,—­some old and mistaken promise by which he was hampered.  Her direct and honest nature could conceive of nothing less than this which could explain his conduct.  Restlessly her imagination fastened on this solution of the problem, and tortured her in vain efforts to decide what would be right under such circumstances.

The day was a long, hard one for Mercy.  The more she thought, conjectured, remembered, and anticipated, the deeper grew her perplexity.  All the joy which she had at first felt in the consciousness that Stephen loved her died away in the strain of these conflicting uncertainties:  and it was a grave and almost stern look with which she met him that night, when, with an eager bearing, almost radiant, he entered her door.

He felt the change at once, and, stretching both his hands towards her, exclaimed,—­

“Mercy, my dear, new, sweet friend! are you not well to-night?”

“Oh, yes, thank you.  I am very well,” replied Mercy, in a tone very gentle, but with a shade of reserve in it.

Stephen’s face fell.  The expression of patient endurance which was habitual to it, and which Mercy knew so well, and found always so irresistibly appealing, settled again on all his features.  Without speaking, he drew his chair close to the hearth, and looked steadfastly into the fire.  Some minutes passed in silence.  Mercy felt the tears coming again into her eyes.  What was this intangible but inexorable thing which stood between this man’s soul and hers?  She could not doubt that he loved her; she knew that her whole soul went out towards him with a love of which she had never before had even a conception.  It seemed to her that the words he had spoken and she had received had already wrought a bond between them which nothing could hinder or harm.  Why should they sit thus silent by each other’s side to-night, when so few hours ago they were full of joy and gladness?  Was it the future or the past which laid this seal on Stephen’s lips?  Mercy was not wont to be helpless or inert.  She saw clearly, acted quickly always; but here she was powerless, because she was in the dark.  She could not even grope her way in this mystery.  At last Stephen spoke.

“Mercy,” he said, “perhaps you are already sorry that I care so much for you.  You said yesterday you never would be.”

“Oh, no, indeed!  I am not,” said Mercy.  “I am very glad you care so much for me.”