measure! He would wait and see! he would be guided by events! As to the sin
of the thing--how many had not fallen like him, and no one the wiser!
Never would he so offend again! and in the meantime he would let it go, and
try to forget it--in the hope that providence now, and at length time,
would bury it from all men's sight! He would go on the same as if the
untoward thing had not so cruelly happened, had cast no such cloud over the
fair future before him! Nor were his selfish regrets unmingled with
annoyance that Isy should have yielded so easily: why had she not aided him
to resist the weakness that had wrought his undoing? She was as much to
blame as he; and for her unworthiness was he to be left to suffer? Within
an hour he had returned to the sermon under his hand, and was revising it
for the twentieth time, to perfect it before finally committing it to
memory; for so should the lie of his life be crowned with success, and
seem the thing it was not--an outcome of extemporaneous feeling! During
what remained of the two days following he spared no labour, and at last
delivered it with considerable unction, and the feeling that he had
achieved his end.

Neither of those days did Isy make her appearance in his room, her aunt
excusing her apparent neglect with the information that she was in bed with
a bad headache, while herself she supplied her place.

The next day Isy went about her work as usual, but never once looked up.
James imagined reproach in her silence, and did not venture to address her,
having, indeed, no wish to speak to her, for what was there to be said? A
cloud was between them; a great gulf seemed to divide them! He wondered at
himself, no longer conscious of her attraction, or of his former delight in
her proximity. His resolve to marry her was not yet wavering; he fully
intended to keep his promise; but he must wait the proper time, the right
opportunity for revealing to his parents the fact of his engagement! After