“It is the only thing for us to do,” he urged. “You are alone in the world, and need me to take care of you, while I need you to give me an object in life; come, Sarah, let us begin together a new life, and see if we two cannot manage to shed some lustre upon the name of Winthrop before we die.” She yielded to his pleadings, and a few days later there was a quiet wedding in their pretty drawing-room, where, in the presence of only the family and the Tillinghasts, they plighted their vows with more of conscious responsibility and solemnity than either had ever experienced before. When the Americans then in Rome read the announcement of the marriage in the next morning’s papers, it was very generally remarked that “it was strange everybody had made such a mistake as to suppose that Dr. Winthrop was to marry Miss Rochester,” and nothing more was said about the matter. The young couple had planned to leave immediately for New York, where Norman intended to begin the practice of law, and just before their departure Salome drew the bride quietly one side, as if for the purpose of a private leave-taking. The new Mrs. Winthrop was visibly agitated, and looking wistfully in her companion’s face, said: “Salome, you have been very good to me, and, believe me, it is hard for me to say good-by. Once more let me tell you that I am sorry——” “Hush; this is your wedding-day,” Salome said, smiling, and interrupting her speech. “I believe you are going to be very happy in your new life—I hope so, at any rate, and let this be the seal of my pardon.” She slipped a small package into her hands as she spoke, adding, hurriedly, as she turned away: “Do not open it until you get home.” Three weeks later, Sarah Winthrop broke the seal of that package, as she sat with her husband in their room in the Hoffman House, New York, and found within it a deed of gift to herself of fifty thousand dollars—the interest only of which was to have fallen to her mother upon the consummation of the Rochester-Hamilton marriage. She threw herself into her husband’s arms weeping passionately. “Norman! Norman!” she cried, “that girl is an angel, and my whole life shall be spent in trying to be like her.” Three months passed, and then Dr. Winthrop and his party arrived in New York. Madame Winthrop had not been well, and they had been obliged to delay their return on her account, while her son was not a little anxious regarding the state she was in. There had been a terrible struggle going on in the proud woman’s heart ever since the evening of Mrs. Tillinghast’s reception in Rome, and it was slowly but surely undermining her health. She was continually conscious of the great wrong that she had done her son’s wife; she knew that she ought to acknowledge it, and yet her almost indomitable will would not yield to what her conscience told her was a solemn duty.