r little nephew, whom she had learned to love so well. She had the
choice of but two courses of action, to marry Tryon or to dismiss him.
The thought that she might lose him made him seem only more dear; to
think that he might leave her made her sick at heart. In one week she
was bound to give him an answer; he was more likely to ask for it at
their next meeting.

IX

DOUBTS AND FEARS

Rena's heart was too heavy with these misgivings for her to keep them
to herself. On the morning after the conversation with Tryon in which
she had promised him an answer within a week, she went into her
brother's study, where he usually spent an hour after breakfast before
going to his office. He looked up amiably from the book before him and
read trouble in her face.

"Well, Rena, dear," he asked with a smile, "what's the matter? Is
there anything you want--money, or what? I should like to have
Aladdin's lamp--though I'd hardly need it--that you might have no wish
unsatisfied."

He had found her very backward in asking for things that she needed.
Generous with his means, he thought nothing too good for her. Her
success had gratified his pride, and justified his course in taking her
under his protection.

"Thank you, John. You give me already more than I need. It is
something else, John. George wants me to say when I will marry him. I
am afraid to marry him, without telling him. If he should find out
afterwards, he might cast me off, or cease to love me. If he did not
know it, I should be forever thinking of what he would do if he SHOULD
find it out; or, if I should die without his having learned it, I
should not rest easy in my grave for thinking of what he would have
done if he HAD found it out."

Warwick's smile gave place to a grave expression at this somewhat
comprehensive statement. He rose and closed the door carefully, lest
some one of the servants might overhear the conversation. More
liberally endowed than Rena with imagination, and not without a vein of
sentiment, he had nevertheless a practical side that outweighed them
both. With him, the problem that oppressed his sister had been in the
main a matter of argument, of self-conviction. Once persuaded that he
had certain rights, or ought to have them, by virtue of the laws of
nature, in defiance of the customs of mankind, he had promptly sought
to enjoy them. This he had been able to do by simply concealing his
antecedents and making the most of hi