g a soft unintelligible song. She could
not be banished, certainly, but at least Honour might share the watch,
and presently she made her appearance armed with pillows and a
coverlet, intending to lie down on the sofa in her sister's room. Old
Anna looked at her warningly as she entered, but Marian heard the
rustling of the bedclothes and glanced up sharply.

"Please go to bed properly in your own room, Honour. I want nobody but
Nanna."

"I will only lie down here, in case you call. I won't say a word,"
said Honour, unmoved by the glitter in her sister's eyes, from which
the film of weariness had vanished. Marian raised herself on her elbow.

"I will send Nanna if I want you. Please go." As Honour still
hesitated, her voice rose higher. "Go, go! I don't want you here.
You never appreciated my dear Charley."

"Go, missy, go!" entreated the old woman. "Missus not know what she
done say." But Honour was too deeply hurt.

"Oh, Marian, how can you say such a thing? Why, if I had not liked him
for himself, I should have loved him because he was so fond of you,
dear fellow!"

"You said to mamma that he was so very ordinary. I heard you through
the _chiks_," persisted Marian, holding her with accusing eyes.

"I didn't mean you to hear. How could I tell you were there? And I
learned to know him better afterwards--how good and kind he was."
Honour defended herself desperately.

"It was not my hearing you, but your saying it, that mattered. I could
laugh at it at the time, knowing what he really was, but now--I can't
bear to have you in the room with me, to-night, at any rate, when you
misjudged him so."

"Oh, Marian, how can you be so unkind? If I was in trouble, I would
not keep you away."

"You would not be in this kind of trouble. You couldn't be. It isn't
in you." Marian hurled her shafts deliberately. "You don't understand
what it is to care for any one as I care for Charley, and I believe you
never will. You can let two men go on making love to you at once for
more than a year, because you can't make up your mind which of them you
like best."

"Is that my fault? I don't like either of them in that way."

"No, but you like knowing that they think of you, and care for you, and
watch for the least crumb of kindness you are willing to throw them.
When you thought poor Charteris was dead, you luxuriated in misery with
that very foolish young Gerrard, who ought to have given you the choice
o