When Marcia went to her room that night she threw herself on her knees beside the bed and tried to pray. She felt more lonely and heartsick than she ever felt before in her life. She did not know what the great hunger in her heart meant. It was terrible to think David had loved Kate. Kate never loved him in return in the right way. Marcia felt very sure of that. She wished she might have had the chance in Kate’s place, and then all of a sudden the revelation came to her. She loved David herself with a great overwhelming love. Not just a love that could come and keep house for him and save him from the criticisms and comments of others; but with a love that demanded to be loved in return; a love that was mindful of every dear lineament of his countenance. The knowledge thrilled through her with a great sweetness. She did not seem to care for anything else just now, only to know that she loved David. David could never love her of course, not in that way, but she would love him. She would try to shut out the thought of Kate from him forever. And so, dreaming, hovering on the edge of all that was bitter and all that was sweet, she fell asleep with David’s letter clasped close over her heart. CHAPTER XXIII Marcia had gone down to her own house the next morning very early. She had hoped for a letter but none had come. Her soul was in torment between her attempt to keep out of her mind the hateful things Hannah Heath had said, and reproaching herself for what seemed to her her unseemly feeling toward David, who loved another and could never love her. It was not a part of her life-dream to love one who belonged to another. Yet her heart was his and she was beginning to know that everything belonging to him was dear to her. She went and sat in his place at the table, she touched with tenderness the books upon his desk that he had used before he went away, she went up to his room and laid her lips for one precious daring instant upon his pillow, and then drew back with wildly beating heart ashamed of her emotion. She knelt beside his bed and prayed: “Oh, God, I love him, I love him! I cannot help it!” as if she would apologize for herself, and then she hugged the thought of her love to herself, feeling its sweet pain drift through her like some delicious agony. Her love had come through sorrow to her, and was not as she would have had it could she have chosen. It brought no ray of happy hope for the future, save just the happiness of loving in secret, and of doing for the object loved, with no thought of a returned affection. Then she went slowly down the stairs, trying to think how it would seem when David came back. He had been so long gone that it seemed as if perhaps he might never return. She felt that it had been no part of the spirit of her contract with David that she should render to him this wild sweet love that he had expected Kate to give. He had not wanted it. He had only wanted a wife in name.