oung. He has a thousand chances of happiness," answered my
grandfather, somewhat eagerly. "If he could know he would be the first
to sacrifice himself to prevent the disgrace. I tell you, Bawn, that if
Garret Dawson publishes the secret he holds it will kill your
grandmother and me as surely as though he had shot us through the heart.
Child, child, we would have given you the world if we could! Can you do
this much for us?"

I looked at his poor old, twitching, grey face, at his hands that worked
pitifully. I saw my grandmother lift her streaming eyes to Heaven as
though to ask for help. They had been very tender to me, and they were
old. God knows no woman ever shrank more from a lover than I from
Richard Dawson. But, perhaps, if I sacrificed myself, following the
example of our Lord himself, He would take me away from the intolerable
marriage. He would let me save them, and then He would take me to
himself.

"I will marry Richard Dawson," I said quietly.

I saw an immense relief in the poor old faces, although their cloud
barely lifted. They did not thank me. Perhaps they knew I could not have
borne it. I saw them creep closer together as though for comfort, as I
got up and went away to my own room.

I was as glad as I could be of anything that Nora had gone a day or two
earlier to nurse one of her uncle's children who was sick. How could I
have borne her presence about me? To think I had saved her and had
myself fallen into the net! And at least she had loved the man,
incredible as it seemed, while I recoiled from him with loathing,
because I loved another man with my whole heart and soul.

Something within me cried out that it would be a wicked marriage. I fell
on my knees by my bed, but I could not pray. I felt numb and sick. I
stretched my arms out across the little white bed where I had slept so
happily, despite the ghosts. I laid my face upon them and stayed there
in a trance of misery.

I heard my grandmother pause at the door and listen as she went down the
corridor to her bedroom, and I dreaded that she should come in; but,
perhaps, thinking from the silence that I was asleep she went on after
the pause.

I must have fallen asleep in that comfortless position for when I awoke
I was chilled and stiff. There was white moonlight in the room, and I
heard, with a sinking of my heart, the crying of the woman in the
shrubbery. She always came when there was trouble. Well, God knows,
there was trouble enough