“Oh, Mr. Gray, Mr. Gray!” called Emma, “I was just coming to take Ellen and the children for a turn, and we can leave you at the office on our way.”

“Thank you,” said John, “but there are several persons I must see before going to the office, and it would detain you too long.  I am already much too late,” and without a second look he hurried on.

I saw a slight color rise in Mrs. Long’s cheek, but no observer less jealous than I would have detected it; and there was not a shade less warmth than usual in her manner to Ellen.

Ellen told her that she could not go herself, but she would be very glad to have some of the children go; and then she stood for some moments, leaning on the carriage-door and talking most animatedly.  I looked from one woman to the other.  Ellen at that moment was more beautiful than Mrs. Long.  The strong, serene, upright look which was her most distinguishing and characteristic expression, actually shone on her face.  I wished that John Gray had stopped to see the two faces side by side.  Emma Long might be the woman to stir and thrill and entrance the soul; to give stimulus to the intellectual nature; to rouse passionate emotion; but Ellen was the woman on whose steadfastness he could rest,—­in the light of whose sweet integrity and transparent truthfulness he was a far safer, and would be a far stronger man than with any other woman in the world.

As the carriage drove away with all three of the little girls laughing and shouting and clinging around Mrs. Long, a strange pang seized me.  I looked at Ellen.  She stood watching them with a smile which had something heavenly in it.  Turning suddenly to me, she said:  “Sally, if I were dying, it would make me very happy to know that Emma Long would be the mother of my children.”

I was about to reply with a passionate ejaculation, but she interrupted me.

“Hush, dear, hush.  I am not going to die,—­I have no fear of any such thing.  Come to my room now, and I will tell you all.”

She locked the door, stood for a moment looking at me very earnestly, then folded me in her arms and kissed me many times; then she made me sit in a large arm-chair, and drawing up a low foot-stool, sat down at my feet, rested both arms on my lap, and began to speak.  I shall try to tell in her own words what she said.

“Sally, I want to tell you in the beginning how I thank you for your silence.  All winter I have known that you were seeing all I saw, feeling all I felt, and keeping silent for my sake.  I never can tell you how much I thank you; it was the one thing which supported me.  It was an unspeakable comfort to know that you sympathized with me at every point; but to have had the sympathy expressed even by a look would have made it impossible for me to bear up.  As long as I live, darling, I shall be grateful to you.  And, moreover, it makes it possible for me to trust you unreservedly now.  I had always done you injustice, Sally.  I did not think you had so much self-control.”