“I am glad you have spoken of this, Miss Veronica,” said the girl, “for I wish very much to talk to you about it. I am in a great puzzle. The truth of it is, I have already, in a sense, come to think favourably of it; and yet, I fear, not so favourably—not, in short, in the way that it—that he—deserves to be thought of. I like him most thoroughly, and I like to know that he cares for me. I am weary, very weary of having no home, no nest of my own; and if I yielded to my inclination, I would run to Geoffrey and ask him to take care of me, and be good to me. And I believe I could be a good wife to him. But, dear Miss Veronica, is this enough? Is it not selfish of me so to take advantage or this good man’s great love for me, when I know, ah, how surely, that never can I give him the same in return? For,”—and here, at last, her pale face flushed and her voice sank,—“for I have known what it is to give the whole love of one’s being, one’s self, utterly and entirely to another. And this I could never do again.” Veronica sighed again. “My poor child!” was all she said. But Marion urged her to say more. “Tell me a little more, in the first place,” was her reply. “This other, whoever he may be, I do not wish to know, but tell me is it altogether and for ever over between you?” “Altogether and for ever,” answered Marion firmly. “By this time he is the husband of another woman.” “But you, you care for him still?” persisted Veronica, her own tender heart quivering at the thought of the pain this necessary probing of hers must he inflicting on Marion. The girl for a moment sat perfectly silent, her eyes gazing out on the pretty garden, of which nevertheless they saw nothing. Then she said slowly, but distinctly, and without hesitation— “No, as I know myself I do not care for him now. He has tried me too cruelly, brought me in sight of the very gates of death, and when there, I tore him, him the husband of that girl, out of my heart, for ever! I forgive him, but I do not love him any more. And Geoffrey is so good and kind, and I am so lonely. Dear Miss Veronica, may I not give myself the only pleasure left me, that of making another person happy? I would, I do love him, in a perfectly different way. More as I love Harry. But it might grow to be a love more worthy of his, for I would indeed try to be a good wife to him. And I can’t go back to the Cross House and to my utter loneliness. Oh, do tell me what to do.” Veronica was sorely troubled.