appiness?"

"You heard what he said to me?" she went on quickly and vehemently.
"You heard the words--but you don't know what they meant--you don't
know why I threw down the pen and turned my back on him." She rose in
sudden agitation, and walked about the room. "I have kept many things
from your knowledge, Marian, for fear of distressing you, and making
you unhappy at the outset of our new lives. You don't know how he has
used me. And yet you ought to know, for you saw how he used me to-day.
You heard him sneer at my presuming to be scrupulous--you heard him say
I had made a virtue of necessity in marrying him." She sat down again,
her face flushed deeply, and her hands twisted and twined together in
her lap. "I can't tell you about it now," she said; "I shall burst out
crying if I tell you now--later, Marian, when I am more sure of myself.
My poor head aches, darling--aches, aches, aches. Where is your
smelling-bottle? Let me talk to you about yourself. I wish I had given
him my signature, for your sake. Shall I give it to him to-morrow? I
would rather compromise myself than compromise you. After your taking
my part against him, he will lay all the blame on you if I refuse
again. What shall we do? Oh, for a friend to help us and advise us!--a
friend we could really trust!"

She sighed bitterly. I saw in her face that she was thinking of
Hartright--saw it the more plainly because her last words set me
thinking of him too. In six months only from her marriage we wanted
the faithful service he had offered to us in his farewell words. How
little I once thought that we should ever want it at all!

"We must do what we can to help ourselves," I said. "Let us try to
talk it over calmly, Laura--let us do all in our power to decide for
the best."

Putting what she knew of her husband's embarrassments and what I had
heard of his conversation with the lawyer together, we arrived
necessarily at the conclusion that the parchment in the library had
been drawn up for the purpose of borrowing money, and that Laura's
signature was absolutely necessary to fit it for the attainment of Sir
Percival's object.

The second question, concerning the nature of the legal contract by
which the money was to be obtained, and the degree of personal
responsibility to which Laura might subject herself if she signed it in
the dark, involved considerations which lay far beyond any knowledge
and experience that either of us possessed. My