to his surprise.

Marcella came forward. She was in black as before, and pale, but there
was a knot of pink anemones fastened at her throat, which, in the play
they made with her face and hair, gave him a start of pleasure.

"I wanted," she said, "to ask you again about those shares--how to
manage the sale of them. Could you--could you give me the name of some
one in the City you trust?"

He was conscious of some astonishment.

"Certainly," he said. "If you would rather not entrust it to Mr. French,
I can give you the name of the firm my grandfather and I have always
employed; or I could manage it for you if you would allow me. You have
quite decided?"

"Yes," she said mechanically,--"quite. And--and I think I could do it
myself. Would you mind writing the address for me, and will you read
what I have written there?"

She pointed to the little writing-table and the writing materials upon
it, then turned away to the window. He looked at her an instant with
uneasy amazement.

He walked up to the table, put down his hat and gloves beside it, and
stooped to read what was written.

_"It was in this room you told me I had done you a great wrong. But
wrongdoers may be pardoned sometimes, if they ask it. Let me know by a
sign, a look, if I may ask it. If not it would be kind to go away
without a word."_

She heard a cry. But she did not look up. She only knew that he had
crossed the room, that his arms were round her, her head upon his
breast.

"Marcella!--wife!" was all he said, and that in a voice so low, so
choked, that she could hardly hear it.

He held her so for a minute or more, she weeping, his own eyes dim with
tears, her cheek laid against the stormy beating of his heart.

At last he raised her face, so that he could see it.

"So this--this was what you had in your mind towards me, while I have
been despairing--fighting with myself, walking in darkness. Oh, my
darling! explain it. How can it be? Am I real? Is this face--these lips
real?"--he kissed both, trembling. "Oh! when a man is raised thus--in a
moment--from torture and hunger to full joy, there are no words--"

His head sank on hers, and there was silence again, while he wrestled
with himself.

At last she looked up, smiling.

"You are to please come over here," she said, and leading him by the
hand, she took him to the other side of the room. "That is the chair you
sat in that morning. Sit down!"

He sat down, wondering, and before he c