He accepted the position with resignation. The
first sharp bitterness of her loss was over. That he should ever cease to
love her was impossible; but it seemed to him that a chivalrous
friendship for her, a disinterested brotherly affection, was in no manner
incompatible with that hapless silent love. No word of his, in all their
intercourse to come, should ever remind her of that hidden devotion; no
shadow of the past should ever cloud the calm brightness of the present.
It was a romantic fancy, perhaps, for a man of business, whose days were
spent in the very press and tumult of commercial life; but it had lifted
Gilbert Fenton out of that slough of despond into which he had fallen
when Marian seemed utterly lost to him--vanished altogether out of his
existence.
He had a sense of bitter disappointment, therefore, when he found that
she had gone, leaving neither letter nor message for him. How little
value his friendship must needs possess for her, when she could abandon
him thus without a word! He had felt sure that she would consult him upon
her affairs; but no, she had her husband to whom to appeal, and had no
need of any other counsellor.
"I was a fool to think that I could ever be anything to her, even a
friend," he said to himself bitterly; "women are incapable of friendship.
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