im, and sworn that I would be true
to him? Can that be made to pass away,--even if one wished it?"

"Of course it can. Nothing need be fixed for you till you have stood
at the altar with a man and been made his wife. You may choose still.
I can never choose again."

"I never will, at any rate," said Nora.

Then there was another pause. "It seems strange to me, Nora," said
the elder sister, "that after what you have seen you should be so
keen to be married to any one."

"What is a girl to do?"

"Better drown herself than do as I have done. Only think what there
is before me. What I have gone through is nothing to it. Of course I
must go back to the Islands. Where else am I to live? Who else will
take me?"

"Come to us," said Nora.

"Us, Nora! Who are the us? But in no way would that be possible.
Papa will be here, perhaps, for six months." Nora thought it quite
possible that she might have a home of her own before six months were
passed,--even though she might be wheeling the smaller barrow,--but
she would not say so. "And by that time everything must be decided."

"I suppose it must."

"Of course papa and mamma must go back," said Mrs. Trevelyan.

"Papa might take a pension. He's entitled to a pension now."

"He'll never do that as long as he can have employment. They'll go
back, and I must go with them. Who else would take me in?"

"I know who would take you in, Emily."

"My darling, that is romance. As for myself, I should not care where
I went. If it were even to remain here, I could bear it."

"I could not," said Nora, decisively.

"It is so different with you, dear. I don't suppose it is possible
I should take my boy with me to the Islands; and how--am I--to
go--anywhere--without him?" Then she broke down, and fell into a
paroxysm of sobs, and was in very truth a broken-hearted woman.

Nora was silent for some minutes, but at last she spoke. "Why do you
not go back to him, Emily?"

"How am I to go back to him? What am I to do to make him take me
back?" At this very moment Trevelyan was in the house, but they did
not know it.

"Write to him," said Nora.

"What am I to say? In very truth I do believe that he is mad. If I
write to him, should I defend myself or accuse myself? A dozen times
I have striven to write such a letter,--not that I might send it, but
that I might find what I could say should I ever wish to send it. And
it is impossible. I can only tell him how unjust he has been, how