explain; and
thought he could make Francis hear reason when he had cooled off.

"It doesn't really matter," she said wearily. "Only tell him to hurry,
because I'm--so--sleepy."

She sank into the chair where she had been sitting before Francis
appeared, and leaned back and shut her eyes. Pennington, with a
concerned look on his face, came nearer her at that, and looked down at
her, reaching down to feel her pulse. She moved her hand feebly away.

"Francis--wouldn't like it," she said; and that was the last thing she
remembered distinctly, though afterwards when she tried she seemed to
recall hearing Pennington, very far off in the distance, calling
peremptorily, "Ellison! Ellison! Come here at once!"

She wondered faintly why Pennington should want to hurry him up. It
was about this time that she quietly slipped sidewise from her chair,
and was in a little heap on the veranda before he could turn and catch
her, or Francis could respond to the summons.

"This is what you've done," was what Pennington said quietly when
Francis reappeared. He did not offer to touch Marjorie or pick her up.

Francis flung himself down on his knees beside his wife. Then he
looked up at Pennington, with a last shade of suspicion in his eyes.

"What do you think it is?" he asked. "Is she really fainting?"

"You young fool, no!" said Pennington. "She's ill."

"Ill!" said Francis, and gathered her up and laid her on the settee at
the other end of the porch. "What's the matter, do you think? Is it
serious?"

His words were quiet enough, but there was a note of anguish in his
voice which made Pennington sorry for him in spite of himself. But he
did not show much mercy.

"It is probably overwork," he said. "We've all done what we could to
spare her, but a child like this shouldn't be put at drudgery, even to
satisfy the most jealous or selfish man. You've had a china cup, my
lad, and you've used it as if it was tin. And it's broken, that's all."

Francis looked down at Marjorie, holding her head in his arms. It lay
back limply. Her eyes were half open, and her heart, as he put his
hand over it, was galloping. Her cheeks were beginning to be scarlet,
and her hand, when he reached down and touched it, burned. He looked
up at Pennington with an unconscious appeal, unmindful of the older
man's harsh words.

"Do you think she'll die?" he asked.

"I have no way of knowing. If she does, you have the consolation of
kno