Marion saw that she could do nothing, so she leaned sadly over the bed. “If it will relieve your mind, Kittie, you can whisper it to me softly. I will never tell. It shall always be your secret.” The burning eyes of the sick girl were searching her face, and the claw-like fingers which Marion held twitched and trembled convulsively. “No, no. I can’t speak it,” she said at last, “but there is a picture—his picture—in the bosom of my dress: the head nurse has it—ask Miss Williams for it.” She sank back upon her pillow completely exhausted now. There was a change passing over her face that even Marion noticed. In a second Miss Williams was standing beside the bed. “Poor thing, it will soon be over,” she said, sadly; “put the screen around her and go to Miss H——, Miss Marlowe. She is suffering greatly, and I am too busy.” “What! Leave Kittie now?” whispered Marion in horror. “She is dead,” said Miss Williams, with a quick glance at Kittie. “The living first, Miss Marlowe, the living and suffering.” Marion went mutely across the ward, mastering her grief as she went. In that one short week she had learned to love Kittie. “It will soon kill me at this rate,” she reasoned to herself. “Oh, I must learn not to sympathize so deeply with my patients.” At sunrise the next morning Marion stood by one of the windows of the hospital, looking out upon the water, that glinted and gleamed all around her. A group of convicts were busy mending a broken spot in the sea-wall, their two guards standing idly by, each armed with a rifle. “Here is the picture Kittie spoke of,” said Miss Williams, coming up to her. “You can look at it, Miss Marlowe, and then you must go to bed. It is not necessary for you to work day and night, even if you are a ‘probationer.’” She slipped a picture into Marion’s hand and went away. She was too busy herself to think of sleeping. A great beam of the golden sun fell upon the window panes at that instant and Marion’s eyes were slightly dazzled as she looked at the picture. Then with a stifled scream Marion dropped the bit of pasteboard from her hand. It was a picture of Reginald Brookes—frank, blue-eyed and handsome! CHAPTER XII. A DESPERATE CHANCE. For a few hours that day Marion remained quietly in her room. She was not expected on duty, and it was fortunate for her that they could spare her. She had returned the picture of Reginald Brookes without a word to Miss Williams, but the revelation it had brought to her distressed her beyond expression. “It must be a mistake,” she whispered over and over. “The thing is impossible! It is too utterly horrible!” Then the dying girl’s words came back to her distinctly. On her deathbed it was not probable that Kittie would have told a falsehood. Marion was glad when the batch of letters was handed to her. They would serve to take her mind from this dreadful subject. The first letter was from Dollie, telling of her success as a typewriter.