e would have it. I know that I am letting him waste his sweetness
all in vain. There should be some one else, oh, so different from me!
There should be one like himself, beautiful, strong in health, with
hot eager blood in her veins, with a grand name, with grand eyes and
a broad brow and a noble figure, one who, in taking his name, will
give him as much as she takes--one, above all, who will not pine and
fade before his eyes, and trouble him during her short life with
sickness and doctors and all the fading hopes of a hopeless invalid.
And yet I let him come, and I have told him how dearly I love him. He
comes and he sees it in my eyes. And then it is so glorious, to be
loved as he loves. Oh, Mrs. Roden, he kissed me." That to Mrs. Roden
did not seem to be extraordinary; but, not knowing what to say to it
at the moment, she also kissed the girl. "Then I told him that he
must go, and never come back to me again."

"Were you angry with him?"

"Angry with him! With myself I was angry. I had given him the
right to do it. How could I be angry with him? And what does it
matter;--except for his sake? If he could only understand! If he
would only know that I am in earnest when I speak to him! But I am
weak in everything except one thing. He will never make me say that
I will be his wife."

"My Marion! Dear Marion!"

"But father wishes it."

"Wishes you to become his wife?"

"He wishes it. Why should I not be like any other girl, he says.
How can I tell him? How can I say that I am not like to other girls
because of my darling, my own dearest mother? And yet he does not
know it. He does not see it, though he has seen so much. He will not
see it till I am there, on my bed, unable to come to him when he
wants me."

"There is nothing now to show him or me that you may not live to be
old as he is."

"I shall not live to be old. You know that I shall not live to be
more than young. Have any of them lived? For my father,--for my dear
father,--he must find it out for himself. I have sometimes thought
that even yet I might last his time--that I might be with him to the
end. It might be so,--only that all this tortures me."

"Shall I tell him;--shall I tell Lord Hampstead?"

"He must at any rate be told. He is not bound to me as my father is.
For him there need be no great sorrow." At this Mrs. Roden shook her
head. "Must it be so?"

"If he is banished from your presence he will not bear it lightly."

"Will a young man