love to the end,"
she said, "your own Marion. But I will not be made a Countess, only
in order that a vain name may be carved over my grave." "God has
provided a bitter cup for your lips, my love," she wrote again,
"in having put it into your head to love one whom you must lose so
soon. And mine is bitter because yours is bitter. But we cannot rid
ourselves of the bitterness by pretences. Would it make your heart
light to see me dressed up for a bridal ceremony, knowing, as you
would know, that it was all for nothing? My lord, my love, let us
take it as God has provided it. It is only because you grieve that I
grieve;--for you and my poor father. If you could only bring yourself
to be reconciled, then it would be so much to me to have had you to
love me in my last moments,--to love me and to be loved."

He could not but accept her decision. Her father and Mrs. Roden
accepted it, and he was forced to do so also. He acknowledged to
himself now that there was no appeal from it. Her very weakness gave
her a strength which dominated him. There was an end of all his
arguments and his strong phrases. He was aware that they had been of
no service to him,--that her soft words had been stronger than all
his reasonings. But not on that account did he cease to wish that it
might be as he had once wished, since he had first acknowledged to
himself his love. "Of course I will not drive her," he said to Mrs.
Roden, when that lady urged upon him the propriety of abstaining from
a renewal of his request. "Had I any power of driving her, as you
say, I would not do so. I think it would be better. That is all. Of
course it must be as she shall decide."

"It would be a comfort to her to think that you and she thought alike
about all things," said Mrs. Roden.

"There are points on which I cannot alter my convictions even for
her comfort," he answered. "She bids me love some other woman. Can
I comfort her by doing that? She bids me seek another wife. Can I do
that;--or say that I will do it at some future time? It would comfort
her to know that I have no wound,--that I am not lame and sick and
sore and weary. It would comfort her to know that my heart is not
broken. How am I to do that for her?"

"No;"--said Mrs. Roden--"no."

"There is no comfort. Her imagination paints for her some future
bliss, which shall not be so far away as to be made dim by
distance,--in enjoying which we two shall be together, as we are
here, with our hands fr