LEON DEXTER was not wrong in his suspicions.

It was Hendrickson who visited Miss Loring on the evening of his interview with Mrs.
Denison.

The young man had striven, with all the power he possessed, to overcome his fruitless passion--but striven in vain .-- The image of Miss Loring had burned itself into his heart, and become ineffaceable.

The impression she had made upon him was different from that made by any woman he had yet chanced to meet, and he felt that, in some mysterious way, their destinies were bound up together.

That, in her heart, she preferred him to the man who was about to sacrifice her at the marriage altar he no longer doubted.
"Is it right to permit this sacrifice ?" The question had thrust itself upon him for days and weeks.
"Leon Dexter cannot fill the desire of her heart." Thus he talked with himself.