"I knew he was not well," she said; "I feared it might be worse. Let me tell you this: no one knows him as I do. I must speak plainly. First, there was his trouble; that shadowed for him one ideal in his life. Then this drove him to a kind of self-concealment; and that wounded another ideal--his love of candor. Then he asked me to marry him, and he told me the truth about himself and I turned him off. Then came the scandals that tried to take away his good name, and I suppose have taken it away. And then, through all this, were the sufferings he was causing others around him, and the loss of his mother. I have lived through all these things with him while I have been away, and I understand; they sap life. I am going up to write to him now, and will you post the letter to-night? I wish him to come to see me at once, and our marriage must take place as soon as possible--here--very quietly." Rowan came the next afternoon. She was in the library; and he went in and shut the door, and they were left alone. Professor Hardage and Miss Anna sat in an upper room. He had no book and she had no work; they were thinking only of the two downstairs. And they spoke to each other in undertones, breaking the silence with brief sentences, as persons speak when awaiting news from sick-rooms. Daylight faded. Outside the lamplighter passed, torching the grimy lamps. Miss Anna spoke almost in a whisper: "Shall I have some light sent in?" "No, Anna." "Did you tell him what the doctors have said about his health?" "No; there was bad news enough without that for one day. And then happiness might bring back health to him. The trouble that threatens him will have to be put down as one of the consequences of all that has occurred to him--as part of what he is and of what he has done. The origin of disease may lie in our troubles--our nervous shocks, our remorses, and better strivings." The supper hour came. "I do not wish any supper, Anna." "Nor I. How long they stay together!" "They have a great deal to say to each other, Anna." "I know, I know. Poor children!" "I believe he is only twenty-five." "When Isabel comes up, do you think I ought to go to her room and see whether she wants anything?" "No, Anna." "And she must not know that we have been sitting up, as though we felt sorry for them and could not go on with our own work." "I met Marguerite and Barbee this afternoon walking together. I suppose she will come back to him at last. But she has had her storm, and he knows it, and he knows there will never be any storm for him. She is another one of those girls of mine--not sad, but with half the sun shining on them. But half a sun shining steadily, as it will always shine on her, is a great deal." "Hush!" said Miss Anna, in a whisper, "he is gone! Isabel is coming up the steps." They heard her and then they did not hear her, and then again and then not again. Miss Anna started up: "She needs me!" He held her back: