Paul Hendrickson was more to her than any living man! "He should have spared me an interview, alone," she said to herself.
"Better for both of us not to meet." This was her state of feeling, when after repressing, as far as possible, every unruly emotion, she left her room and took her way down stairs.
"Is not this imprudent ?" The mental question arrested the footsteps of Miss Loring, ere she had proceeded five paces from the door of her chamber.
"Is not what imprudent ?" was answered back in her thoughts.
"What folly is this!" she said, in self-rebuke, and passed onward.
"Miss Loring!" There was too much feeling in Hendrickson's manner.
But its repression, under the circumstances, was impossible.
"Mr.Hendrickson!" The voice of Miss Loring betrayed far more of inward disturbance than she wished to appear.
Their hands met.

They looked into each other's eyes--then stood for some moments in mutual embarrassment.
"You are almost a stranger," said Jessie, conscious that any remark was better, under the circumstances, than silence.
"Am I ?" Hendrickson still held her hand, and still gazed into her eyes.

The ardor of his glances reminded her of duty and of danger.
Her hand disengaged itself from his--her eyes fell to the floor--a deep crimson suffused her countenance.

They seated themselves--she on the sofa, and he on a chair drawn close beside, or rather nearly in front of her.

How heavily beat the maiden's heart! What a pressure, almost to suffocation, was on her bosom! She felt an impending sense of danger, but lacked the resolution to flee.
"Miss Loring," said Hendrickson, his unsteady voice betraying his inward agitation, "when I last saw you"-- "Sir!" There was a sudden sternness in the young girl's voice, and a glance of warning in her eye.