There was a light in the sitting-room and the door was ajar.

Stepping noiselessly to it she looked in.
Paul was standing before, the fireplace, leaning on the mantelpiece, and looking up into the eyes of the girl above, smiling and talking softly to her, Miss Ludington entered the room and laid her hand gently on his arm.
Her appearance did not seem to startle him in the least.

"Paul, my dear boy!" she said, "you had better go to bed." "It's no use," he said; "I can't sleep, and I had to come down here and look at her.

Think, just think, aunty, that to-morrow we shall see her." The young fellow's nervous excitement culminated in a burst of ecstatic tears, and soon afterwards Miss Ludington induced him to go to bed.
How much more he loved the girl than even she did! She was filled with dread as she thought of the effect which a disappointment of the hope he had given himself up to might produce.

And what folly, after all, it was to expect anything but disappointment! The spectacle of Paul's fatuous confidence had taken hers away..