"I will not interrupt you--but," he said, colouring, "would your sister wish me to hear all this--think only of her--if she disliked it?" "I am not thinking or talking of her, except with reference to my part of the story," said Grace, pettishly. "Well, we went to Lornbay, I daresay you remember the place well, as you were laid-up there. Well, Margaret had another lover there" (she did not see him start), "and this long, lanky, would-be fast youth also wished to marry my Margaret, and, of course, she said, No; and I was not at all annoyed," she continued, naïvely, "for he had not a sixpence. "Well--you see I begin all my sentences with that useful word--but it was anything but well now. We went off to a most detestable little village called Torbreck, and there I stupidly caught cold and coughed. I never heard of any one who coughed as I did. Then Mr. Drayton found us out, and I forget exactly what he did, but he gave us ever so many things, and grapes; and how I thanked him. Then he again wanted to marry Margaret. "Oh!" she exclaimed, the tears running down her face, "I never, never can forget one night." She came and knelt beside my bed, and she asked me if this sacrifice would really be what I wished; she said it would be giving her life, and that it was worse for her now than it had been before she had been at Lornbay. Sir Albert, do not turn away from me now. You cannot hate my deed worse than I do--you cannot have a lower opinion of me than I have of myself. I excited myself, and I bid her "do it!" and Grace lay back in her chair utterly exhausted." What could the young man say? The deed was done and nothing could undo it. The utter selfishness of Grace's conduct could find no excuse; he tried to master his emotion; he could only succeed in saying in a broken voice something about God's forgiveness. But Grace was past all the anguish of seeing this horror in his face. She had exerted herself to tell him the story, and put Margaret right in his eyes; and she had given way to exhaustion, and was deaf and blind to all that passed round her--for the time. He stayed a little while, and left her, shocked at the violence of his own feeling against her. The image of his poor childish love--kneeling beside the bedside of the sister she adored, who sacrificed her remorselessly--for what? A few luxuries. It was absolutely terrible to think of, and he forgot to take into account the feebleness of health that might have impaired judgment. He waited in London till he thought Mrs. Dorriman had time to answer, whence for fear of any mistakes he had dated his telegram. Her answer came, and was not fully satisfactory. _My brother is very ill, and I cannot leave him, but I send my maid Jean._ He went again to Grace's lodgings, and he told the landlady that an old family servant was on her way. Then he tried to think how best to convey this news to Margaret.