efore?"

She sat with her chin on her hand, a smile dancing.

"Whom did you walk with yesterday afternoon?" she said slowly.

He looked bewildered.

"There!" she cried, with a sudden wild gesture; "when I have told you it
will undo it all. Oh! if Frank had never said a word to me; if I had had
no excuse, no assurance, nothing to go upon, had just called to you in
the dark, as it were, there would be some generosity, some atonement in
that! Now you will think I waited to be meanly sure, instead of--"

She dropped her dark head upon his hand again with an abandonment which
unnerved him, which he had almost to brace himself against.

"So it was Frank," he said--"_Frank!_ Two hours ago, from my window, I
saw him and Betty down by the river in the park. They were supposed to
be fishing. As far as I could see they were sifting or walking hand in
hand, in the face of day and the keepers. I prepared wise things to say
to them. None of them will be said now, or listened to. As Frank's
mentor I am undone."

He held her, looking at her intently.

"Shall I tell you," he asked, in a lower voice--"shall I show you
something--something that I had on my heart as I was walking here?"

He slipped his hand into the breast-pocket of his coat, and drew out a
little plain black leather case. When he opened it she saw that it
contained a pen-and-ink sketch of herself that had been done one evening
by a young artist staying at the Court, and--a bunch of traveller's joy.

She gazed at it with a mixture of happiness and pain. It reminded her of
cold and selfish thoughts, and set them in relief against his constancy.
But she had given away all rights--even the right to hate herself.
Piteously, childishly, with seeking eyes, she held out her hand to him,
as though mutely asking him for the answer to her outpouring--the last
word of it all. He caught her whisper.

"Forgive?" he said to her, scorning her for the first and only time in
their history. "Does a man _forgive_ the hand that sets him free, the
voice that recreates him? Choose some better word--my wife!"

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARCELLA***

******* This file should be named 13728.txt or 13728.zip *******

This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/7/2/13728

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editio