"You have heard him preach, and you know he was not lacking in
genius; but you have not heard him speak, eye to eye and hand to
hand. It was there his power came in, and there, too, perhaps, his
greatest temptation. For he was one for women to love, and it is not
always easy to modify a naturally magnetic look and tone because the
hand that touches yours is shy and white, and the glance which
steals up to meet your own has within it the hint of unconscious
worship. Yet what he could do he did; for, unknown, perhaps, to any
one here, he was engaged to be married, as so many young ministers
are, to a girl he had met while at college.

"I do not mean to go into too many particulars, Constance. He did
not love this girl, but he meant to be true to her. He was even
contented with the prospect of marrying her, till----Oh, Constance,
I almost forget that he is gone, and that my own life is at an end,
when I think of that day, six months ago--the day when we first met,
and, without knowing it, first loved. And then the weeks which
followed when each look was an event, and a passing word the making
or the marring of a day. I did not know what it all meant; but he
realized only too soon the precipice upon which we stood, and I
began to see him less, and find him more reserved when, by any
chance, we were thrown together. His cheek grew paler, too, and his
health wavered. A struggle was going on in his breast--a struggle of
whose depth and force I had little conception then, for I dared not
believe he loved me, though I knew by this time he was bound to
another who would never be a suitable companion for him.

"At last he became so ill, he was obliged to quit his work, and for
a month I did not see him, though only a short square separated us.