CHAPTER XIX.
STANDING GUARD IN VAIN.
It was Isabel Marlay that sought Albert again.

Her practical intellect, bothered with no visions, dazed with no theories, embarrassed by no broad philanthropies, was full of resource, and equally full, if not of general, at least of a specific benevolence that forgot mankind in its kindness to the individual.
Albert saw plainly enough that he could not keep Katy in her present state of feeling.

He saw how she would inevitably slip through his fingers.

But what to do he knew not.

So, like most men of earnest and half-visionary spirit, he did nothing.