She knew that she was very fond of dear Franklin, and that she always would be fond of him, but, with these accusations crowding thickly upon her, she was ill at ease and unhappy in his presence.

What could she say to Franklin?
'I did, indeed, deceive myself into thinking that I might be able to marry you, and I let you see that I thought it; and then my friend's chance words showed me that I never could.

What am I to think of myself, Franklin?
And what can you think of me ?' For though she could no longer feel pride in Franklin's love; though it had ceased, since Helen's words, to have any decorative value in her eyes, its practical value was still great; she could not think of herself as not loved by Franklin.

Her world would have rocked without that foundation beneath it; and the fear that Franklin might, reading her perplexed, unstable heart, feel her a person no longer to be loved, was now an added complication.
'O Franklin, dear Franklin!' she said to him suddenly one day, turning upon him eyes enlarged by tears, 'I feel as if I were guilty towards you.' She almost longed to put her head on his shoulder, to pour out all her grief, and be understood and comforted.

Franklin had not been slow to recognise the change in his beloved's attitude towards him.