left alive. If it
had been small-pox, or anything in that way, I could have borne it.
But this thing, this terrible misfortune!"

Then she laughed, and then burst out sobbing with loud tears, and hid
her face.

"You will be married, and still be happy," said the doctor.

"Married! Rubbish! So much you know about it. Am I ever to get strong
in my limbs again, so as to be able to cross the water and go back to
my own country?"

Here the doctor assured her that she would be able to go back to her
own country, if it were needed.

"Father," she said, as soon as the doctor had left her, "let there be
an end to all this about Lord Castlewell. I will not marry him."

"But, my dear!"

"I will not marry him. There are two reasons why I should not. I do
not love him, and he does not love me. There are two other reasons. I
do not want to marry him, and he does not want to marry me."

"But he says he does."

"That is his goodness. He is very good. I do not know why a man
should be so good who has had so bad a bringing up. Think of me,--how
good I ought to be, as compared with him. I haven't done anything
naughty in all my life worse than tear my frock, or scold poor Frank;
and yet I find it harder to give him up, merely because of the
grandeur, than he does to marry me, the poor singing girl, who can
never sing again. No! My good looks are gone, such as they were. I
can feel it, even with my fingers. You had better take me back to the
States at once."

"Good-bye, Rachel," said the lord, coming into her room the day but
one after this. Her father was not with her, as she had elected to be
alone when she would bid her adieu to her intended husband.

"This is very good of you to come to me."

"Of course I came."

"Because you were good. You need not have come unless you had wished
it. I had so spoken to you as to justify you in staying away. My
voice is gone, and I can only squeak at you in this broken treble."

"Your voice would not have mattered at all."

"Ah, but it has mattered to me. What made you want to marry me?"

"Your beauty quite as much as your voice," said the lord.

"And that has gone too. Everything I had has gone. It is melancholy!
No, my lord," she said, interrupting him when he attempted to
contradict her, "there is not a word more to be said about it. Voice
and beauty, such as it was, and the little wit, are all gone. I did
believe in my voice myself, and therefore I felt myself fitting
to marr