Taking her to Dresden,--or to New Zealand,--would only confirm in her passion such a girl as Emily Wharton.

Nothing could shake her but the ascertained unworthiness of the man,--and not that unless it were ascertained beneath her own eyes.

And then years must pass by before she would yield to another lover.

There was a further question, too, which he did not fail to ask himself.

Was the man necessarily unworthy because his name was Lopez, and because he had not come of English blood?
As he strove to think of this, if not coolly yet rationally, he sat himself down on the river's side and began to pitch stones off the path in among the rocks, among which at that spot the water made its way rapidly.