screams as I came
past was awful to hear. But surely, ma'am," the woman broke off in
dismay as her mistress seized her hat and shawl, "you won't go out and
it raining and a blowing fit to take you off your feet. You can't do
nothing, and you'll get your death."

But Mrs. Fletcher was out already, heedless of wind or rain, and making
her way to the scene of the accident. "Poor souls," she was thinking,
"so sudden and frightful a fate. Perhaps I can be of help to some one."
For her life trouble had done this for her; made her tender of heart,
and pitiful of soul to all who suffered.

A great crowd were there from Dover village as she drew near, beginning
to bear away the wounded, the dying and the dead. Groans and cries of
infinite misery made the rainy twilight hideous. Mrs. Fletcher
shuddered, but she stooped resolutely over a man who lay almost at her
feet, a man whom she might have thought dead but for the low moan that
now and then came from his lips.

She bent above him timidly, her heart fluttering at something vaguely
familiar in his look.

"Can I do anything for you?" she asked, "I fear you are very very badly
hurt."

The eyes opened; in the dim light he half arose on his elbow. "Marian,"
he said, and fell back and fainted wholly away.

And so her prayers were answered after many days, and death itself
seemed to have given back her husband to Marian Fletcher's arms. Over
his pillow life and Death fought their sharp battle, for many long
weeks, while she watched over him, and prayed beside him in what agony
of remorse, and terror and passionate tenderness only Heaven and herself
ever knew.

Those ceaseless, agonized prayers prevailed. In the pale dawn of a
Christmas morning, the heavy brown eyes opened and fixed upon her face,
no longer in delirium, but with the kindling light of recognition, and
great and sudden joy.

"Marian," he said faintly, "my wife."

She was on her knees beside him, his weak head lying in her caressing
arms.

"My dearest, my dearest, thank God; my own, my cherished husband,
forgive your erring wife."

His face lit with a rare smile, as he looked up into the pale, tear wet,
passionately earnest face.

"It is true then what I heard, what has brought me home. You have sought
me. But Marian, what if I must tell you I am still poor, poor as when we
parted." She shrunk away as though he had hurt her.

"I have deserved that you should say this to me," she said in a stifled
voic