Page:Watch and Ward (Boston, Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1878).djvu/44

Rh some grim devotee of a former age making a pilgrimage for the welfare of one he loved. He kept with great labor a copious diary, which he meant to read aloud on the winter nights of coming years. His diary was directly addressed to Nora, she being implied throughout as reader or auditor. He thought at moments of his vow to Isabel Morton, and asked himself what had become of the passion of that hour. It had betaken itself to the common limbo of our dead passions. He rejoiced to know that she was well and happy; he meant to write to her again on his return and tell her that he himself was as happy as she could wish to see him. He mused ever and anon on the nature of his affection for Nora, and wondered what earthly name he could call it by. Assuredly he was not in love with her: you could not fall in love with a child. But if he had not a lover's love, he had at least a lover's jealousy; it would have made him miserable to believe his scheme might miscarry. It would fail, he fondly assured himself, by no fault of hers. He was sure of her future; in that last interview at school he had guessed the answer to the riddle of her formless girlhood. If he could only be as sure of his own constancy as of hers! On this point poor Roger might fairly have let his conscience rest; but to test his resolution, he deliberately courted temptation, and on a dozen occasions allowed present loveliness to measure itself with absent promise. At the risk of a large expenditure of blushes, he bravely incurred the blandishments of various charming persons of the South. They failed signally, in every case but one, to quicken his pulses. He studied these gracious persons, he noted their gifts