fter she'd seen him--so defiant--so unlike Lydia! But now
she hadn't seen him for a week, and her mother and Marietta had been
'talking to her'--_Julia!_--and then Paul had come to see her every
evening, and had been just right--firm and yet not exacting, and ever so
gentle and kind--and this afternoon when he came Lydia cried and didn't
want to go down, but her mother said she mustn't be childish, and
Marietta had just taken her right down to the library and left her there
with Paul, and there she was now." The doctor started up and beat his
thin, corded hand on the mantel. He could not speak. His sister got up
and laid a tender hand on his shoulder. "Poor Marius!" she said again.

He drew a long breath. "I did not fly at their throats--I turned and ran
like mad down the stairs and into the library. It was Rankin I wanted to
kill for letting his pride come in--for leaving her there alone with
those--I was ready to snatch Lydia up bodily and carry her off to--" He
stopped short and laughed harshly. "I reach to Lydia's shoulder," he
commented on his own speech. "That's me. To see what's to be done and--"

"What _was_ to be done?" asked Mrs. Sandworth patiently. She was quite
used to understanding but half of what her brother said and had acquired
a quiet art of untangling by tireless questionings the thread of
narrative from the maze of his comments and ejaculations.

"There was nothing to be done. I was too late."

"You didn't burst in on them while Paul was kissing her or anything, did
you?"

"Paul wasn't there."

"Not there! Why, Marius, you're worse than usual. Didn't you tell me her
mother said--"

"He had been there--one look at Lydia showed that. She sat there alone
in the dim light, her face as white--and when I came in she said,
without looking to see who it was, 'I'm engaged to Paul.' She said it to
her mother, who was right after me, of course, and then to Marietta."

"Well--!" breathed Mrs. Sandworth as he paused; "so that was all there
was to it?"

"Oh, no; they did the proper thing. They kissed her, and cried, and
congratulated everybody, and her mother said, with an eye on me:
'Darling, you're _not_ doing this just because you know it'll make us so
very happy, _are_ you?' Lydia said, 'Oh, no; she supposed not,' and
started to go upstairs. But when Marietta said she'd go and telephone to
Flora Burgess to announce it, Lydia came down like a flash. It was _not_
to be announced she told them; she'd _