Though Jenny might understand, the world would think he had forgotten Jenny.

The minority of faithful hearts would grow sadder by his seeming apostasy, and the cynic would strengthen his pessimism by one more illustration of human inconstancy.

The world might hear that he was loving Isabel in some Aegean isle, and still deem him faithful; for grief is allowed mistresses, but with a wife it is understood to die.
No! so long as the world lasted no other woman should steal her name from Jenny's grave.
And this was an unassailable symbol.

Here the vital principle of his faithfulness was entrenched as in an impregnable fortress.

He would see Isabel's heart break ere she should bear Jenny's name.
Yet while he made the vow, his love for Isabel was musical as spring within his soul, and he dared to tell himself that in God's sight he was still Isabel's as well as Jenny's.
Thus it came about that one autumn day, when Isabel's letters had lain unopened through spring and summer, in one sudden impulse of mere desire he had opened and read them,--not as Jenny's letters, but as messages for which he himself was hungering.