Our love, with no recognition but our own, has been so strangely sweet that I could be content never to alter that condition; and yet I fear no bond, and am ready to put it all to the trial.  For if our love is not such as will uphold an engagement, it will sink of itself; and if it is true as we believe it to be, then it may last eternally.  What more is to say I will keep for your ear, for you are enough in my heart to know all my thoughts, and to know better than I can tell you how dearly, how constantly, how entirely I love you.

Yours forever, Cornelia.

Without a pause, without an erasure this letter had transcribed itself from Cornelia’s heart to the small gilt-edged note paper; but she found it a much more difficult thing to answer the request of Rem Van Ariens.  She was angry at him for putting her in such a dilemma.  She thought that she had made plain as possible to him the fact that she was pleased to be a companion, a friend, a sister, if he so desired, but that love between them was not to be thought of.  She had told Arenta this many times, and she had done so because she was certain Arenta would make this position clear to her brother.  And under ordinary circumstances Arenta would have been frank and free enough with Rem, but while her own marriage was such an important question she was not inclined to embarrass or shadow its arrangements by suggesting things to Rem likely to cause disagreements when she wished all to be harmonious and cheerful.  So Arenta had encouraged, rather than dashed, Rem’s hopes, for she did not doubt that Cornelia would finally undo very thoroughly what she had done.

“A little love experience will be a good thing for Rem,” she said to herself—­“it will make a man of him; and I do hope he has more self-respect and courage than to die of her denial.”

It is easy, then, to understand how Cornelia, relying on Arenta’s usually ready advice and confidences, was sure that Rem had accepted the friendship that was all in her power to give him, and that this belief gave to their intercourse a frank and kindly intimacy that it would not otherwise have obtained.  This state of things was desirable and comfortable for Arenta, and Cornelia also had found a great satisfaction in a friendship which she trusted had fully recognized and accepted its limitations.  Now, all these pleasant moderate emotions were stirred into uncomfortable agitation by Rem’s unlooked-for and unreasonable request.  She was hurt and agitated and withal a little sorry for Rem, and she was also in a hurry, for the letter for Joris was waiting, as she wished to send both by the same messenger.  Finally she wrote the following words, not noticing at the time, but remembering afterwards, what a singular soul reluctance she experienced; how some uncertain presentiment, vague and dark and drear, stifled her thoughts and tried to make her understand, or at least pause.  But alas! the doom that walks side by side with us, never warns; it seems rather to stand sarcastic at our ignorance, and to watch speculatively the cloud of trouble coming—­ coming on purpose because we foolishly or carelessly call it to us.