“I am quite surprised, Hugh!  Surely you can see that Dexie’s feelings for you are far from encouraging, and how can you think that two such firebrands—­yes, you must excuse the term, if you do not like it, but it suits you both—­do you think you two could be happy together?  Have you thought of this matter seriously, Hugh?  I am afraid not.  Yet one should study well the character of the one whom we would choose to walk with along life’s road.  We all know something of Dexie’s temper, for she has not tried to hide even her worst faults from us.  With your own high temper, Hugh, it would be a great risk to link your life with hers.  There is nothing so beautiful and complete as a happy married life, but there can be nothing so unutterably miserable as an unhappy marriage.”

“Well, it may be as you say, and Dexie may not be suitable in some ways for me, but I can never care for anyone else as I care for her.  If I could only win her, I would make her so happy that there would never be any cause for her to get angry with me.”

But the memory of the words he had spoken on the roof a few short hours before stung him at this moment, and sharply reminded him of his inability to control himself as her lover.  Would he be more likely to govern himself as her husband?

Seeing that Mrs. Gurney was regarding him closely, he hastily rose to his feet, saying: 

“You are right, Mrs. Gurney, as you always are.  I should not succeed in controlling my temper in the future any better than I have done in the past.  I will try to overcome this foolishness.  I love Dexie Sherwood too well to wish to bring one moment of sorrow into her life.”

He left the room and sought his own chamber, and during the hour he sat there in silence he fancied he had buried forever every thought of tender regard for Dexie Sherwood.  He even imagined that he could look with favor on Lancy, or anyone else, who would make her as happy as she deserved to be.

His magnanimous feelings were even puffed up to that degree that he was mentally witnessing her marriage ceremony, with Lancy as chief actor, when the sound of the dinner-bell recalled him to his senses.  Yet, when he sat down to the table and beheld Lancy’s empty seat, he ground his heel into the rug under the table, as if it were his enemy, for the thought occurred that Lancy, at this present moment, might be bending over the head so precious to him, or whispering words in her ears which he never wished her to hear, unless spoken by himself.  Truly he did not know himself, and as the nature of his thoughts occurred to him he almost despised himself for his weakness.  Surely he needed another grave than that he had dug while in the privacy of his own room; a grave that would keep entombed that which he wished to put forever out of his memory!  It was only by bringing up to his mind his own imperfections that he could keep Dexie out of his thoughts.

But as days went by, and other matters of importance intervened, he was kept so busy, mentally as well as bodily, that his love was put back out of sight; he felt her absence less keenly, and his love for Dexie was thought of as a thing of the past.