ke a word to her before he departed. "I am going into the
City, Marion," he said. "I know it is well that I should be absent
this afternoon. I shall return to tea. God bless thee, my child."

Marion, rising from her chair, kissed his lips and cheeks, and
accompanied him to the door. "It will be all well, my father," she
said; "it will be all well, and your child will be happy."

About half-an-hour afterwards there came a knock at the door, and
Marion for a moment thought that her lover was already there. But it
was Mrs. Roden who came up to her in the drawing-room. "Am I in the
way, Marion?" she asked. "I will be gone in a minute; but perhaps I
can say a word first."

"Why should you be in the way?"

"He is coming."

"Yes, I suppose so. He said that he would come. But what if he come?
You and he are old friends."

"I would not be here to interrupt him. I will escape when we hear the
knock. Oh, Marion!"

"What is it, Mrs. Roden? You are sad, and something troubles you?"

"Yes, indeed. There is something which troubles me sorely. This lover
of yours?"

"It is fixed, dear friend; fixed as fate. It does not trouble me. It
shall not trouble me. Why should it be a trouble? Suppose I had never
seen him!"

"But you have seen him, my child."

"Yes, indeed; and whether that be for good or evil, either to him or
to me, it must be accepted. Nothing now can alter that. But I think,
indeed, that it is a blessing. It will be something to me to remember
that such a one as he has loved me. And for him--"

"I would speak now of you, Marion."

"I am contented."

"It may be, Marion, that in this concerning your health you should be
altogether wrong."

"How wrong?"

"What right have you or I to say that the Lord has determined to
shorten your days."

"Who has said so?"

"It is on that theory that you are acting."

"No;--not on that; not on that alone. Were I as strong as are other
girls,--as the very strongest,--I would do the same. Has my father
been with you?"

"Yes, he has."

"My poor father! But it is of no avail. It would be wrong, and I will
not do it. If I am to die, I must die. If I am to live, let me live.
I shall not die certainly because I have resolved to send this fine
lover away. However weak Marion Fay may be, she is strong enough not
to pine for that."

"If there be no need?"

"No need? What was it you said of unequal marriages? What was the
story that you told me of your own? If I love this