warm her chill white
fingers.

"Do you think," she says at last, very slowly, "that if--if he were rid
of me, he would marry her? Does she care for him?"

"I don't think about it. Yes, it is very strange; but, child as she is,
he has perfectly infatuated her."

There is another long pause, during which he eagerly scans her face.
Suddenly her eyes light up, and she returns his glance.

"Are you _really_ willing to marry me?" she says.

"Why do you ask?" he returns, simply. "Are my eyes not honest?"

Virginia smiles. "If you mean it," she says, "go now, and write me the
same words to-night or to-morrow."

So, as she bids him, he goes.

* * * * *

Lord Harford had set down nothing in malice. What he told Virginia is
absolutely true. Philip Vansittart is in love with a gay, pretty child,
whose winsome tricks have coiled her round his heart. He has never
spoken one word of love to her, for he feels and knows himself as much
bound to Virginia as though the marriage-tie he once so utterly abhorred
linked them. He no longer, strange to say, thinks and speaks so evilly
of marriage. Were he free, would he not joyfully chain himself with all
the bonds that church and society can impose to this sweet young life
which would make him young again? He has no thought or desire to blast
this girl-life as he had done Virginia's. Perish the thought! When these
ideas come to him, he hates and loathes himself; he makes superhuman
efforts to drive them away--but the limpid blue eyes come and look at
him over his briefs; the childish voice rings in his ears in the night
watches! He grows pale and haggard. At last he makes a mighty resolve.

"Virginia," he says, two nights after Lord Harford's visit to her, "let
us be married!"

He takes her hand kindly, but his eyes do not meet hers, and the tender
inflection of yore is missing from his voice.

Virginia betrays no surprise. Poor soul! She understands too well.

"Why?" she says quietly. "I think we are very well as we are."

"No," he returns hastily, "we are not! My views have changed on the
subject--changed entirely. Marriage is the best thing. It decides your
fate. To live as we do is neither one thing nor the other."

"You forget," she says, in a tone so calm as to be almost unnatural.
"This state has great advantages. There is no tie between us. If either
of us tired of the other, there is nothing to hinder our parting,
to-morrow--to-night ev