said, of the Quaker. It was understood that Marion would soon
return to Holloway, and that on that account the serenity of Pegwell
Bay need not be disturbed by the coming of so great a man as Lord
Hampstead. Hampstead had of course ridiculed the reason, but had
complied with the request,--with the promise, however, that Marion
should return early in the summer. But the summer weeks had passed
by, and Marion did not return.

Letters passed between them daily in which Marion attempted always
to be cheerful. Though she had as yet invented no familiar name for
her noble lover, yet she had grown into familiarity with him, and was
no longer afraid of his nobility. "You oughtn't to stay there," she
said, "wasting your life and doing nothing, because of a sick girl.
You've got your yacht, and are letting all the summer weather go by."
In answer to this he wrote to her, saying that he had sold his yacht.
"Could you have gone with me, I would have kept it," he wrote. "Would
you go with me I would have another ready for you, before you would
be ready. I will make no assurance as to my future life. I cannot
even guess what may become of me. It may be that I shall come to live
on board some ship so that I may be all alone. But with my heart as
it is now I cannot bear the references which others make to me about
empty pleasures." At the same time he sold his horses, but he said
nothing to her as to that.

Gradually he did acknowledge to himself that it was her doom to
die early,--almost acknowledged to himself that she was dying.
Nevertheless he still thought that it would have been fit that they
should be married. "If I knew that she were my own even on her
deathbed," he once said to Mrs. Roden, "there would be a comfort
to me in it." He was so eager in this that Mrs. Roden was almost
convinced. The Quaker was willing that it should be so,--but willing
also that it should not be so. He would not even try to persuade his
girl as to anything. It was his doom to see her go, and he, having
realized that, could not bring himself to use a word in opposition
to her word. But Marion herself was sternly determined against the
suggestion. It was unfitting, she said, and would be wicked. It was
not the meaning of marriage. She could not bring herself to disturb
the last thoughts of her life, not only by the empty assumption of
a grand name, but by the sounding of that name in her ears from the
eager lips of those around her. "I will be your