They were outside the Newton grounds before he spoke to his brother, then he said: "David, it is too hard. I don't understand. She never asked me to stay--the Wyntons were asked. I feel as if I had no business here. I had better go back to Glasgow. I will go back to-morrow." "It is not her house. She rents her classroom, and pays her own and her child's board and lodging there. That is all. She had no right to ask you to remain. It is Mr. Newton's house, and he received you in a Christian and gentlemanly spirit. I do not care to say how I would have received a man who had treated my Agnes, or Flora, in the way Theodora was treated." "I will go back to Glasgow to-morrow." "You will do so at the peril of all your future happiness and prosperity." Then they were silent until they reached a great white house standing in green depths of sweet foliage. Robert wondered and admired. Its vast hall, and the spacious room, so splendidly furnished, into which his brother led him, filled him with astonishment. Two pretty girls were sitting at a table drawing embroidery patterns, and they nearly threw the table over in their delight when their father entered. "Here is your Uncle Robert Campbell!" he cried joyously. "Give him some of your noisy welcome, and then run away, you little cherubs, or you will miss your beauty sleep." They were soon alone, and David turned out some of the lights and placed a box of cigars on the table, and the two men smoked in silence for a little while. Then Robert said: "You are very rich, I suppose, David." "Yes, I am tolerably well off." "And very happy?" "As happy as a man can be, who has lost the dearest and sweetest of wives." "But you will marry again?" "Not until my daughters are married! I will never give them a stepmother; she might make me a stepfather. But when they are settled, I may marry again." "Do you know any one likely to take the place of your dead wife?" "No one can ever take her place. There is a very noble woman who may make her own place in my heart and home. I think it would be a very strong, sweet place." "Is she Scotch?" "No." "English?" "No." "American?" "Spanish-American." "Beautiful?" "Very--and of lovely disposition and great attainments. She is also rich, but that I do not count." "What is her name?" "Mercedes Morena. She is a Roman Catholic, a woman of fervent piety." "Spanish. And a Papist. What will mother say? "All kinds of hard things--no doubt--though money makes a good deal of difference in mother's conclusions. But I care nothing for her opinion; a wife is a man's most sacred and personal relation. No one has a right to object to the woman he chooses. It is no one's business but his own." "When I married Theodora, she looked as she looked to-night, only to-night she is far more lovely. Oh, David, I cannot give her up! She is tied to me by my heart-strings. I shall cease to live, if she refuses me."