Yet Elsie half suspected, she knew not what. She looked deeply, searchingly, for an instant into her mother’s dark blue eyes, as if to read the secret of the deep sorrow in them. But Alice dropped her long lashes, and averted her head. Then Elsie took her hand, and bending round to look into her troubled face, said, slowly, earnestly, tearfully: “You love my father dearly, very dearly; don’t you, mamma? Say, don’t you, mamma? Oh! don’t you, mamma?” “Yes, Elsie, I love him,” said Alice, in a very low voice, turning again to her daughter. “Oh, mamma, you love him as well as I love Magnus! Don’t you, mamma? Don’t you? You love him better than you love me, and you will be very happy with him even when I am gone? Say, mamma! Oh, tell me before I go.” For an answer Alice stooped and kissed her daughter on the forehead. “But oh! tell me before I go! Tell me that you love my father better than you love me, and that you will be very happy with him when I am gone,” said Elsie, growing more anxious for an answer every instant. Alice turned very pale. And Magnus, who saw that she was fast losing her self-control, came to her relief, by saying, as he approached, took her hand, and drew her off: “I have a word to say to you, if you please, Mrs. Garnet.” They went to a window, leaving Elsie near the parson. “Mrs. Garnet! Cousin Alice! Dearest friend! I have a proposal to make to you that must surprise and may shock and offend you. But nevertheless, I make it. Listen to me, Alice. I know too well what you have risked for us, and what you have incurred at the hands of your husband this day! Alice! I fear—I tremble at the thought of leaving you here alone, and exposed to his terrible wrath. You——” But Alice raised her hand and gently arrested his speech. “Magnus, forgive me for reminding you that you should not talk to me in that way. General Garnet’s displeasure, as far as I am implicated, will perhaps be just. You and Elsie were right. Your faith was pledged with his consent. You were right in redeeming your mutual pledge. But I, perhaps, was wrong in assisting you in it. I do not clearly know. Oh, Magnus, for many years my ideas of right and wrong have been very much confused. For many years I have lost sight of the exact line that divides good and evil. Oh, Magnus, when the eyes are dimmed with tears, the sight is not very clear—and when the soul is drowned in grief, Magnus, the moral vision may be very much obscured. But this I know—that General Garnet’s anger, just or unjust, moderate or violent, I must meet, and meet alone. By all means alone! The dignity of both is concerned in that.”