It was about a week after that wearying day in Salisbury when Suzette seated herself by the player in this silent way, and sat listening to a funeral march by Beethoven, with her head leaning on her hand, and not so much as a murmur of praise for music or performer stirring the thoughtful quiet of her lips. When the last pianissimo notes, dropping to deepest bass, had melted into silence, Mrs. Wornock looked up and saw Suzette's face bathed in tears--tears that streamed over the pallid cheeks unchecked. Geoffrey's mother started up from the organ, and clasped the weeping girl to her breast. "Poor child! poor child! He was right, then? You are not happy." "Happy! I am miserable! I don't know what to do. I don't know what would be worst or wickedest. To disappoint him, or to marry him, not loving him!" "No, no, no! you must not marry, not if you cannot love him. But you are sure of that, Susie? Are you sure you don't love him? He is so good, so worthy to be loved, as his father was--years ago. Why should you not love him?" "Ah, who can tell?" sighed Suzette. "Who knows why love begins, or how love gets the mastery? I let myself be talked into thinking I loved him. I always liked him--liked his company--was grateful for his attentions, respected him for his fine nature, and then I let him persuade me that this was love; but it wasn't--it never was love. Friendship and liking are not love; and now that the fatal day draws near I know how wide a difference there is between love and liking." "You must not marry him, Suzette. You know I would not willingly say one word that would tell against Allan Carew's happiness. I love him almost as dearly as I love my own son; but when I see you miserable--when I see Geoffrey utterly wretched, I can no longer keep silence. This marriage must be broken off." "Allan will hate me; he will despise me. What can he think me?--false, fickle, unworthy of a good man's love." "You must tell him the truth. It will be cruel, but not so cruel as to let him go on believing in you, thinking himself happy, living in a fool's paradise. Will you let me speak for you, Suzette?--let me do what your mother might have done had she been here to help you in your need?" Suzette was speechless with tears, her face hidden on Mrs. Wornock's shoulder. The door was opened at this moment, and the butler announced Mr. Carew. Allan had approached the group by the organ before either Mrs. Wornock or Suzette could hide her agitation. Their tears, the way in which they clung to each other, told of some over-mastering grief. "Good God! what is the matter? What has happened?" he exclaimed. "Nothing has happened, Allan; yet there is sorrow for all of us--sorrow that has been coming upon us, though some of us did not know it. Suzette, may I tell him--now, this moment?" "May you tell me? Tell me what?" questioned Allan. "Suzette, speak to me--you--you--no one else!"