y in strong language, was the staple of his conversation at
home. He had declared to himself all through his life that stern
truth and strong language were better for mankind than soft phrases.
But in his own parlour in Paradise Row he had rarely seen his Marion
bright as she had been at this lord's table. Was it good for his
Marion that she should be encouraged to such brightness; and if so,
had he been cruel to her to suffuse her entire life with a colour so
dark as to admit of no light? Why had her beauty shone so brightly in
the lord's presence? He too knew something of love, and had it always
present to his mind that the time would come when his Marion's heart
would be given to some stranger. He did not think, he would not
think, that the stranger had now come;--but would it be well that his
girl's future should be affected even as was his own? He argued the
points much within himself, and told himself that it could not be
well.

Mrs. Roden had read it nearly all,--though she could not quite read
the simple honesty of the young lord's purpose. The symptoms of love
had been plain enough to her eyes, and she had soon told herself that
she had done wrong in taking the girl to the young lord's house. She
had seen that Hampstead had admired Marion, but she had not dreamed
that it would be carried to such a length as this. But when he had
knelt on the rug between them, leaning just a little towards the
girl, and had looked up into the girl's face, smiling at his own
little joke, but with his face full of love;--then she had known.
And when Marion had whispered the one word, with her little fingers
lingering within the young lord's touch, then she had known. It was
not the young lord only who had given way to the softness of the
moment. If evil had been done, she had done it; and it seemed as
though evil had certainly been done. If much evil had been done, how
could she forgive herself?

And what were Marion's thoughts? Did she feel that an evil had been
done, an evil for which there could never be a cure found? She would
have so assured herself, had she as yet become aware of the full
power and depth and mortal nature of the wound she had received. For
such a wound, for such a hurt, there is but one cure, and of that she
certainly would have entertained no hope. But, as it will sometimes
be that a man shall in his flesh receive a fatal injury, of which
he shall for awhile think that only some bruise has pained him,
so