ng. This first love
might not be her only one, but the girl's health might break under
the strain, and she took into consideration, as she had often done,
the fairly abnormal strength of Evelyn's emotional nature in a slight
and frail young body. Evelyn was easily one who might die because of
a thwarted love. Then Maria thought of Wollaston, and, loving him as
she did, she acknowledged to herself coolly that he was the first to
be considered, his happiness and well being. Even if Evelyn did break
her heart, the man must have the first consideration. She tried to
judge fairly as to whether she or Evelyn would on the whole be the
best for him. She estimated herself, and she estimated Evelyn, and
she estimated the man. Wollaston Lee was a man of a strong nature,
she told herself. He was capable of self-restraint, of holding his
head up from his own weaknesses forever. Maria reasoned that if he
had been a weaker man she would have loved him just the same, and in
that case Evelyn would have been the one to be sacrificed. She
thought that a girl like Evelyn would not have been such a good wife
for a weak man as she herself, who was stronger. But Wollaston did
not need any extraneous strength. On the contrary, some one who was
weaker than he might easily strengthen his strength. It seemed to her
that Evelyn was distinctly better for the man than she. Then she
remembered the look which she had seen on his face when Evelyn began
her essay that day.

"If he does not love her now it is because he is bound to me," she
thought. "He would most certainly love her if it were not for me."

Again it seemed to Maria distinctly better that she should die,
better--that is, for Evelyn and the man. But she had the thought,
with no morbid desire for suicide or any bitterness. It simply seemed
to her as if her elimination would produce that desirable unknown
quantity of happiness.

Elimination and not suicide seemed to her the only course for her to
pursue. She sat far into the night thinking it over. She had great
imagination and great daring. Things were possible to her which would
not have been possible to many--that is, she considered things as
possibilities which would have seemed to many simply vagaries. She
thought of them seriously, with a belief in their fulfilment. It was
almost morning, the birds had just begun to sing in scattering
flute-like notes, when she crept into bed.

She hardly slept at all. She heard the gathering chor