Of this change the poor girl was at once aware, but she attributed it to a
temporary absorption in his studies. Soon, however, she could not doubt
that not merely was his voice or his countenance changed toward her, but
that his heart had grown cold, and that he was no longer "friends with
her." For there was another and viler element than mere jealousy concerned
in his alteration: he had become aware of a more real danger into which he
was rapidly drifting--that of irrecoverably blasting the very dawn of his
prospects by an imprudent marriage. "To saddle himself with a wife," as he
vulgarily expressed it, before he had gained his license--before even he
had had the poorest opportunity of distinguishing himself in that wherein
lay his every hope and ambition of proving his excellence, was a thing not
for a moment to be contemplated! And now, when Isobel asked him in
sorrowful mood some indifferent question, the uneasy knowledge that he was
about to increase her sadness made him answer her roughly--a form not
unnatural to incipient compunction: white as a ghost she stood a moment
silently staring at him, then sank on the floor senseless.
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