was she to pay her rent and taxes if her best floor was
occupied by a non-paying tenant?

"I was by no means a rich man; but I could not endure to think of that
helpless dying creature thrust out into the streets; and I told my
landlady that I would be answerable for Mrs. Nowell's rent, and for the
daily expenses incurred on her behalf. Mr. Nowell would in all
probability appear in good time to relieve me from the responsibility,
but in the mean while that poor soul upstairs was not to be distressed. I
begged that she might know nothing of this undertaking on my part.

"It was not long after this when our daily meetings on the cliff came to
an end. Mild as the weather was by this time, Mrs. Nowell's doctor had
forbidden her going out any longer. I knew that she had no maid to send
out with the child, so I sent the servant up to ask her if she would
trust the little one for a daily walk with me. This she was very pleased
to do, and Marian became my dear little companion every afternoon. She
had taken to me, as the phrase goes, from the very first. She was the
gentlest, most engaging child I had ever met with--a little grave for her
years, and tenderly thoughtful of others.

"One evening Mrs. Nowell sent for me. I went up to the drawing-room
immediately, and found her sitting in an easy-chair propped up by
pillows, and very much changed for the worse since I had seen her last.
She told me that she had discovered the secret of my goodness to her, as
she called it, from the landlady, and that she had sent for me to thank
me.

"'I can give you nothing but thanks and blessings,' she said, 'for I am
the most helpless creature in this world. I suppose my husband will come
here before I die, and will relieve you from the risk you have taken for
me; but he can never repay you for your goodness.'

"I told her to give herself no trouble on my account; but I could not
help saying, that I thought her husband had behaved shamefully in not
coming to England to her long ere this.

"'He knows that you are ill, I suppose?' I said.

"'O yes, he knows that. I was ill when he sent me home. We had been
travelling about the Continent almost ever since our marriage. He married
me against his father's will, and lost all chance of a great fortune by
doing so. I did not know how much he sacrificed at the time, or I should
never have consented to his losing so much for my sake. I think the
knowledge of what he had lost came between us very