w especially
when she is on the very threshold of new happiness. I do not wish to
see her life given, as her dear mother's was--"

He broke down for a moment, and covered his eyes with his hands. In an
instant Margaret was beside him, clasping him close, and kissing him,
and comforting him with loving words. Then, standing erect, with one
hand on his head, she said:

"Father! mother did not bid you stay beside her, even when you wanted
to go on that journey of unknown danger to Egypt; though that country
was then upset from end to end with war and the dangers that follow
war. You have told me how she left you free to go as you wished; though
that she thought of danger for you and and feared it for you, is proved
by this!" She held up her wrist with the scar that seemed to run
blood. "Now, mother's daughter does as mother would have done herself!"
Then she turned to me:

"Malcolm, you know I love you! But love is trust; and you must trust
me in danger as well as in joy. You and I must stand beside Father in
this unknown peril. Together we shall come through it; or together we
shall fail; together we shall die. That is my wish; my first wish to my
husband that is to be! Do you not think that, as a daughter, I am
right? Tell my Father what you think!"

She looked like a Queen stooping to plead. My love for her grew and
grew. I stood up beside her; and took her hand and said:

"Mr. Trelawny! in this Margaret and I are one!"

He took both our hands and held them hard. Presently he said with deep
emotion:

"It is as her mother would have done!"

Mr. Corbeck and Doctor Winchester came exactly at the time appointed,
and joined us in the library. Despite my great happiness I felt our
meeting to be a very solemn function. For I could never forget the
strange things that had been; and the idea of the strange things which
might be, was with me like a cloud, pressing down on us all. From the
gravity of my companions I gathered that each of them also was ruled by
some such dominating thought.

Instinctively we gathered our chairs into a circle round Mr. Trelawny,
who had taken the great armchair near the window. Margaret sat by him
on his right, and I was next to her. Mr. Corbeck was on his left, with
Doctor Winchester on the other side. After a few seconds of silence Mr.
Trelawny said to Mr. Corbeck:

"You have told Doctor Winchester all up to the present, as we arranged?"

"Yes," he answered; so Mr. Tr