And
what it must be without love on both sides."

The minister had grown quite heated and red in the face.

"I lose all patience!" he went on vehemently. "This poor child of
yours has somehow been brought to believe that it will kill her sister
if her sister does not have what does not belong to her, and what it is
not in the power of all the world, or any soul in the world, to give
her. Her sister will suffer--yes, keenly!--in heart and in pride; but
she will not die. You will suffer too, in your tenderness for her; but
you must do your duty. You must help her to give up. You would be
guilty if you did less. Keep clearly in mind that you are doing right,
and the only possible good. And God be with you!"

XIX.

"HE talked sense, Persis," said Lapham gently, as he mounted to his
wife's side in the buggy and drove slowly homeward through the dusk.

"Yes, he talked sense," she admitted. But she added bitterly, "I
guess, if he had it to DO! Oh, he's right, and it's got to be done.
There ain't any other way for it. It's sense; and, yes, it's justice."
They walked to their door after they left the horse at the livery
stable around the corner, where Lapham kept it. "I want you should
send Irene up to our room as soon as we get in, Silas."

"Why, ain't you going to have any supper first?" faltered Lapham with
his latch-key in the lock.

"No. I can't lose a minute. If I do, I shan't do it at all."

"Look here, Persis," said her husband tenderly, "let me do this thing."

"Oh, YOU!" said his wife, with a woman's compassionate scorn for a
man's helplessness in such a case. "Send her right up. And I shall
feel----" She stopped to spare him.

Then she opened the door, and ran up to her room without waiting to
speak to Irene, who had come into the hall at the sound of her father's
key in the door.

"I guess your mother wants to see you upstairs," said Lapham, looking
away.

Her mother turned round and faced the girl's wondering look as Irene
entered the chamber, so close upon her that she had not yet had time to
lay off her bonnet; she stood with her wraps still on her arm.

"Irene!" she said harshly, "there is something you have got to bear.
It's a mistake we've all made. He don't care anything for you. He
never did. He told Pen so last night. He cares for her."

The sentences had fallen like blows. But the girl had taken them
without flinching. She stood up immovable, but the delicate rose-