She stared into the fire without speaking. Marcella knelt down beside her. "You won't hate me any more?" she said, in a low, pleading voice, taking two cold hands in her own. Letty looked up. "I should like," she said, speaking with difficulty, "if you cared--to see you sometimes." "Only tell me when," said Marcella, laying her lips lightly on the hands, "and I will come." Then she hesitated. "Oh, do believe," she broke out at last, but still in the same low voice, "that all can be healed! Only show him love,--forget everything else,--and happiness must come. Marriage is so difficult--such an art--even for the happiest people, one has to learn it afresh day by day." Letty's tired eyes wavered under the other's look. "I can't understand it like that," she said. Then she moved restlessly in her chair. "Ferth is a terrible place! I wonder how I shall bear it!" * * * * * An hour later Marcella left Madeleine Penley and went back to her own room. The smile and flush with which she had received the girl's last happy kisses disappeared as she walked along the corridor. Her head drooped, her arms hung listlessly beside her. Maxwell found her in her own little sitting-room almost in the dark. He sat down by her and took her hand. "You couldn't make any impression on him as to Parliament?" she asked him, almost whispering. "No. He persists that he must go. I think his private circumstances at Ferth have a great deal to do with it." She shook her head. She turned away from him, took up a paper-knife, and let it fall on the table beside her. He thought that she must have been in tears, before he found her, and he saw that she could find no words in which to express herself. Lifting her hand to his lips, he held it there, silently, with a touch all tenderness. "Oh, why am I so happy!" she broke out at last, with a sob, almost drawing her hand away. "Such a life as mine seems to absorb and batten upon other people's dues--to grow rich by robbing their joy, joy that should feed hundreds and comes all to me! And that besides I should actually bruise and hurt--" Her voice failed her. "Fate has a way of being tolerably even, at last," said Maxwell, slowly, after a pause. "As to Tressady, no one can say what will come of it. He has strange stuff in him--fine stuff I think. He will pull himself together. And for the wife--probably, already he owes you much! I saw her look at you to-night--once as you touched her shoulder. Dear!--what spells have you been using?" "Oh! I will do all I can--all I can!" Marcella repeated in a low, passionate voice, as one who makes a vow to her own heart. "But after to-morrow he will not willingly come across us again," said Maxwell, quietly. "That I saw." She gave a sad and wordless assent. CHAPTER XXIII