will think that I am giving myself airs if I
speak of my duty."

"Your father has allowed me to come."

"I owe him duty, no doubt. Had he bade me never to see you, I hope
that that would have sufficed. But there are other duties than
that,--a duty even higher than that."

"What duty, Marion?"

"That which I owe to you. If I had promised to be your wife--"

"Do promise it."

"Had I so promised, should I not then have been bound to think first
of your happiness?"

"You would have accomplished it, at any rate."

"Though I cannot be your wife I do not owe it you the less to think
of it,--seeing all that you are willing to do for me,--and I will
think of it. I am grateful to you."

"Do you love me?"

"Let me speak, Lord Hampstead. It is not civil in you to interrupt
me in that way. I am thoroughly grateful, and I will not show my
gratitude by doing that which I know would ruin you."

"Do you love me?"

"Not if I loved you with all my heart,--" and she spread out her arms
as though to assure herself how she did love him with all her very
soul,--"would I for that be brought even to think of doing the thing
that you ask me."

"Marion!"

"No,--no. We are utterly unfit for each other." She had made her
first declaration as to duty, and now she was going on as to that
second profession which she intended should be, if possible, the
last. "You are as high as blood and wealth and great friends can make
you. I am nothing. You have called me a lady."

"If God ever made one, you are she."

"He has made me better. He has made me a woman. But others would not
call me a lady. I cannot talk as they do, sit as they do, act as they
do,--even think as they do. I know myself, and I will not presume to
make myself the wife of such a man as you." As she said this there
came a flush across her face, and a fire in her eye, and, as though
conquered by her own emotion, she sank again upon the sofa.

"Do you love me, Marion?"

"I do," she said, standing once more erect upon her feet. "There
shall be no shadow of a lie between us. I do love you, Lord
Hampstead. I will have nothing to make me blush in my own esteem when
I think of you. How should it be other than that a girl such as I
should love such a one as you when you ask me with words so sweet!"

"Then, Marion, you shall be my own."

"Oh, yes, I must now be yours,--while I am alive. You have so far
conquered me." As he attempted to take her in his arms she retreated