wn the completeness of a real
marriage, and then been left alone, it would be impossible to grudge--My
friends urge me to marry again; my girl herself said she wished it. If
I had been less completely happy, I might have done it for the
children's sake. As it is, I can never put another in her place. But I
need a woman in my life. I feel that--but I want a mother, a sister,
not a wife. Can't you evolve a _real_ Miss Harding, who will look after
me and my poor bairns?"

It was an hour later when the message came summoning us to return to the
sitting-room. The two were standing to receive us--glorified beings,
exalted above the earth. Oh, I can't write about it! We clung
together. They spoke glowing words of love and thanks and appreciation;
they looked past us into each other's eyes. It was wonderful,
wonderful; but, oh, it made me feel desperately, desperately lonely!

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

LOVE'S A NEW LIFE.

Late that night, after the two men had left, Charmion and I sat together
over the bedroom fire, and talked and talked. Her lips were opened now,
and she could talk without the old restraint. It seemed a relief to her
to talk. I asked if "Edward" had ever discovered who was the sender of
the fatal letter. "No," she said, "not actually. He is practically
certain, but he did not trouble to bring it home. The mischief was
done. Anyone who had a heart must have been sufficiently punished by
the knowledge of the misery she had caused. He left her to that, but,
oh! Evelyn, what a conception of _love_! to try to poison a man's home
because he had chosen another woman as his wife! Not that I am much
better! I have no right to speak."

Her lips quivered. She confessed to me that, on reading the two
letters, she had been overcome with sorrow and remorse, but that Edward
had refused to listen to her laments. They had both been wrong; each
had an equal need of forgiveness, the suffering in either case had been
intense--not another moment must be wasted! Away with bitterness, away
with remorse, the future lay ahead, it should not be wasted in vain
regrets. Then, blushing and aglow, she told me her plans. "To-morrow--
to-day," she raised her eyes to the clock, and glowed anew, "we are
going by train to a sunny bay in Cornwall, to spend a second honeymoon.
Edward's writing engagement could be fulfilled better in the country
than in town. He had lingered in London for Thorold's sake, not his
own