Had she been there---- But the windows were blank and the place desolate, and he fled the spot and the town, with his questions unasked and his fears unallayed.

In two days he had sailed for home.

With the ocean between them he might forget; and in time he did.

As week followed week, and the silence he had half trusted, half feared, remained unbroken, his equanimity gradually returned, and he prepared to face the prospect of his new marriage much as a man who watches for a dreaded door to open moves with restored confidence about his affairs, when at last convinced that the door is padlocked and the key lost.
One precaution and one only he was wise enough to take.

He told his story to Lucie's brother, and left it to him to say whether or not he should marry his sister.