The poor child could not get over it. She stood still clasping her; but she felt as though her world had crumbled to pieces at her feet. She was roused from the deepest and cruellest pain by feeling Grace's tears dropping fast upon her. Grace was weeping, and she was the cause of her tears. She struggled with a feeling of indignation also. A sense of being unfairly and unjustly put in the wrong, made her less hurt than angry after a moment. It seemed as though in a supreme moment of her life her sister had failed her. "Grace," she said, after a long silence seemed to have made her voice startling, "if this had come to you, would you have done it?" "How can I tell?" said Grace. "Nothing comes to me, it seems." "But you can imagine--you can put yourself in my place." "No, I cannot! We are so different--you and I." "And yet we used to think alike, up till now, Grace. I have always seen the wisdom of your thoughts; you surely cannot counsel me to marry a man who has never appeared to me in any but a ridiculous light." "No, I do not counsel it," said Grace; "but I cannot help seeing that this was a chance for us both, and that it has gone." Margaret shivered. "It is getting cold," she said, abruptly, "and I am tired." She kissed her sister with a long, lingering kiss. It was as if she were bidding farewell to the sister she had known, so much had her words jarred upon her heart and hurt her. Grace slept. Through the uncurtained window, with no blind between her and the bright stars she so loved to look upon, Margaret lay awake. She was only conscious at first of a vivid and keen disappointment. All Grace's cutting speeches about this man's inferiority were fresh in her memory, and now--she thought it possible! Then she thought of all their high expectations when they left school, and of the way in which Grace had been made a sort of leader among them. Grace, who had never really worked, who only did things when she felt inclined, whose work was, as often as not, done for her, and who took all for granted, as due to her personal influence--why had she the position she took up? Softer thoughts succeeded these; during their long stay at school how often Grace had defended her from the oppression of others. How often she had used her influence in her behalf; how often stood out till she had obtained some concession for her.