“If so, my darling, I am not afraid. If the whole devotion of my being can win you to love me, if ever so little, I shall be well repaid. And at least I can make your life a degree less lonely; in time even this sorrow of the past may, to some measure, fade away? Your brave truthfulness has only made me love you more. And at least, my Marion, you do not dislike me? And the girl looked up at him through the tears that were fast filling her sweet eyes, and answered softly, “Dislike you, Geoffrey? The gentlest, truest friend that ever a woman had? Heaven help me to be worthy of you.” Geoffrey took her in his arms and kissed her fervently, on brow and eyes and mouth. Then as he let her go, he asked her if she were angry with him for being so bold. He need not have done so. She was perfectly at ease and as little unembarrassed as if her lover had been Harry. “Angry?” she said, “oh no. Why should you think so?” Yet she was timid and sensitive enough. Though now her heart beat as steadily and softly as usual, though there was no gush on her cheek, no quiver on her lips, it had not always been thus with her. Ralph Severn, who had never kissed her, hardly ever ventured to press her hand, had yet had strange power to affect her. His step on the stair, the slightest touch of his hand, his very presence in the room had brought light to her eyes, colour to her cheeks, glad throbbing to her heart. But Geoffrey’s embrace she took with gentle calmness, perfect absence of emotion of any kind. Was it indeed true that, as she had said her haste, her heart was, in a sense, dead? She thought so. Therein lay her excuse. And thus it came to pass that Marion Vere, a woman of strong affections, dear perceptions, and earnest in her endeavour to choose the right and reject the wrong, committed the grievous error, to call it by no harsher name, of marrying a man whom she knew, and owned to knowing—that she did not love. END OF VOL. II. CONTENTS OF VOL. III. CHAPTER I.THE GARDEN AT THE “PEACOCK.” II.THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH III.THE END OF THE HONEYMOON IV.“AT HOME” V.A WIFELY WELCOME VI.A CRISIS VII.A FRIEND IN DISGUISE VIII.COTTON CHEZ SOI IX.“GOODBYE AND A KISS” X.LITTLE MARY’S ADVENT XI.MARION’S DREAM XII.GEOFFREY’S WIDOW CHAPTER I. THE GARDEN AT THE “PEACOCK.” “Ich ginge im Waldo So für mich him, Und nichts zu suchen Das war mein Sinn Im Schotten sah ich Ein Blümchen stehn Wie Sterne leuchtend Wie Aüglein schön. Ich wollt’es brechen Da sagt’es fein, Soll ich zum Welken Gebrochen sein?”— GÖTHE.