“Yes,” she said, “I am suffering very much. But don’t begin again about a doctor, Geoffrey,” she went on, growing excited. “I won’t see a doctor. There is nothing the matter with me that a doctor is needed for. I shall be well again by the morning, you’ll see. I won’t see a doctor.” “Very well,” he said, “you know best, I suppose. What will you do? Won’t you get up a little and come into the other room? You can be quite quiet there, and I should be horribly dull by myself,” he added, wistfully, half smiling at himself as he spoke. But no answering smile broke on Marion’s face. She moved impatiently, and answered coldly— “I don’t know if I shall get up or not. Leave me, any way, for the present and go and smoke or something. Perhaps I will get up in a while; but oh, do go.” So he went. And then, when alone, she cried with remorse for her unkindness. “But I can’t help it,” she said—“I can’t help it. I don’t want to be wicked, but I am forced into it. I shall grow worse and worse, till I die. Oh, if only I might die now!” There was something consolatory in the idea, and it did not seem wicked to wish for her own death! It seemed an escape from the unbearable present, and in the thought she found a strange sort of calm. She felt sure she was going to be very ill. After all, Geoffrey would not be troubled with her long. In the meantime she need not grudge what pleasure it was in her power to afford him. So after a while she got up, rang the bell for her maid, who was full of sympathy for her mistress’s bad headache, and smoothed her hair and arranged her dress; so that when she rejoined Geoffrey in the sitting-room, he delightedly congratulated her on looking “all right again.” She did her best to be patient that evening, to endure her husband’s tender words and caresses. But it was hard work; and, oh, she was thankful when night fell, and she could again, for a time at least, forget the agony which she hoped was killing her. But in the morning, greatly to her surprise, she was better. She felt terribly disappointed that it was so; she had counted so surely on a return of the so-called low fever, of which she felt pretty certain a second attack would prove fatal. But she did not understand her own constitution. No sudden, short-lived emotion, however violent, would have power to prostrate one naturally so healthy; what rather was to be dreaded for her was a long course of suspense or suffering, such as already she had under-tone. Discontent, anxiety, uncongenial surroundings might gradually undermine the springs of her life; but she was too young and, physically, to elastic, to give way at a sudden, sharp assault.