thur, you would not, and neither should I, knowing all I do. It is
best that we should part, though it almost breaks my heart, for I have
loved you so much."

She stopped for breath, and Arthur was wondering what he could say to
persuade her, when a cheery whistle sounded near and Thornton Hastings
appeared in the door. He had gone to the office after church, and not
knowing that anyone but Arthur was in the library, had come there at
once.

"I beg your pardon," he said when he saw Lucy, and he was hurrying
away, but Lucy called him back, feeling that in him she should find a
powerful ally to aid her in her task.

Appealing to him as Arthur's friend, she repeated the story rapidly,
and then went on:

"Tell him it is best--he must not argue against me, for I feel myself
giving way through my great love for him, and it is not right. Tell
him so Mr. Hastings--plead my cause for me--say what a true woman
ought to say, for, believe me, I am in earnest in giving him to Anna."

There was a ghastly hue upon her face, and her features looked pinched
and rigid, but the terrible heart-beats were not there. God, in his
great mercy, kept them back, else she had surely died under that
strong excitement. Thornton thought she was fainting, and, going
hastily to her side, passed his arm around her and put her in the
chair; then, standing protectingly by her, he said just what first
came into his mind to say. It was a delicate matter in which to
interfere, and he handled it carefully, telling frankly of what had
passed between himself and Anna, and giving it as his opinion that she
loved Arthur to-day just as well as before she left Hanover.

"Then, if that is so and Arthur loves her, as I know he does, it is
surely right for them to marry, and they must," Lucy exclaimed,
vehemently, while Thornton laid his hand pityingly upon her head and
said:

"And only you be sacrificed?"

There was something wondrously tender in the tone of Thornton's voice,
and Lucy glanced quickly up at him, while her blue eyes filled with
the first tears she had shed since she came into that room.

"I am willing--I am ready--I have made up my mind and I shall never
revoke it," she answered, while Arthur again put in a feeble
remonstrance.

But Thornton was on Lucy's side. He did with cooler judgment what she
could not, and when, at last, the interview was ended, there was no
ring on Lucy's forefinger, for Arthur held it in his hand and their
engagem