That was all five years ago now, but as Talbot Strangemore walked slowly over the sand toward Selwyn Heights, memory recalled the past time freshly to his thoughts--memory mixed with pain and mad regret. He recalled his mother’s dying prayer that he would marry Nina Selwyn now in her innocent childhood, that she, his mother, might die in peace, knowing that her dearest wish was fulfilled, and that the happiness of the two she loved was secured. “She is only a child,” he had said, in horror and amazement. “Yes, I know,” his mother answered, “and that is why I cannot bear to leave her alone in the world to be the future prey of designing people. It was her father’s wish and mine that she should be yours some day, but how can I tell what may happen if I die and leave her unprotected and uncared for, save by careless hirelings? Oh, Talbot, you have been a good son to me always. Do not fail me now!” And so, because the young fellow was momentarily reckless and desperate, and because he was half distracted with grief over his dying mother, and could not say no to her earnest prayer, he yielded to her will. “But Nina--what will she say?” he asked, thinking of the pale, large-eyed child who was so changed and subdued by her father’s death that she crept about the house a pallid, wistful little ghost, “Will she be willing?” “Nina will do any thing I ask,” she replied, and the event proved that she was right, for after the child had been summoned to a private interview with her step-mother she came out with wet eyes and grieving red lips and sought Talbot Strangemore in the library. “Mamma has been telling me that you want to marry me,” she said, laying her small brown hand upon his arm, and looking at him with those sad, wet eyes like dusky pansies drowned in dew. He laid his strong white hand softly over the little fingers that trembled on his arm. “Yes,” he answered, “but are you willing, little girl?” “Oh, yes, for when mamma dies I shall have no one left to love me but you, and she says that if I do not marry you I may lose you too some day, so I will be your wife, and then you can take care of me always,” Nina replied, with childish directness, going over the specious arguments that Mrs. Selwyn had used to gain her compliance with her wish. And so in this straightforward manner their strange troth was plighted and a few hours later they stood hand in hand by Mrs. Selwyn’s death-bed, and a wondering half disapproving man of God made the innocent child a bride. In another day she was motherless. Heiress of all the Selwyn wealth, and with all her life before her, she was yet one to be pitied, for she had no one on earth but her husband, and he did not love her, and believed that he had made a great sacrifice when he had bound himself with all his future ambitions to that wan, uninteresting child.