"Now you are going to rest?--and get well?"

Marion smiled again.

"I shall have holiday for a few months--then rest."

"You won't live any more in the East End? You'll come to me--in the
country?" said Diana, eagerly.

"Perhaps! But I want to see all I can in my holiday--before I rest! All
my life I have lived in London. There has been nothing to see--but
squalor. Do you know that I have lived next door to a fried-fish shop
for twelve years? But now--think!--I am in Italy--and we are going to
the Alps--and we shall stay on Lake Como--and--and there is no end to
our plans--if only my holiday is long enough."

What a ghost face!--and what shining eyes!

"Oh, but make it long enough!" pleaded Diana, laying one of the
emaciated hands against her cheek, and smitten by a vague terror.

"That does not depend on me," said Marion, slowly.

"Marion," cried Diana, "tell me what you mean!"

Marion hesitated a moment, then said, quietly:

"Promise, dear, to take it quite simply--just as I tell it. I am so
happy. There was an operation--six weeks ago. It was quite successful--I
have no pain. The doctors give me seven or eight months. Then my enemy
will come back--and my rest with him."

A cry escaped Diana as she buried her face in her friend's lap. Marion
kissed and comforted her.

"If you only knew how happy I am!" she said, in a low voice. "Ever since
I was a child I seem to have fought--fought hard for every step--every
breath. I fought for bread first--and self-respect--for myself--then for
others. One seemed to be hammering at shut gates or climbing precipices
with loads that dragged one down. Such trouble always!" she murmured,
with closed eyes--"such toil and anguish of body and brain! And now it
is all over!"--she raised herself joyously--"I am already on the farther
side. I am like St. Francis--waiting. And meanwhile I have a dear
friend--who loves me. I can't let him marry me. Pain and disease and
mutilation--of all those horrors, as far as I can, he shall know
nothing. He shall not nurse me; he shall only love and lead me. But I
have been thirsting for beautiful things all my life--and he is giving
them to me. I have dreamed of Italy since I was a baby, and here I am! I
have seen Rome and Florence. We go on to Venice. And next week there
will be mountains--and snow-peaks--rivers--forests--flowers--"

Her voice sank and died away. Diana clung to her, weeping, in a
speechless grief and reverence. At the s