many unexpected things to make it hard. Here,
for instance, was Hannah Heath. Why did there have to be a Hannah Heath?
And what was Hannah Heath to her? Kate might feel jealous, indeed, but not
she, not the unloved, unreal, wife of David. She should rather pity Hannah
that David had not loved her instead of Kate, or pity David that he had
not. But somehow she did not, somehow she could not. Somehow Hannah Heath
had become a living, breathing enemy to be met and conquered. Marcia felt
her fighting blood rising, felt the Schuyler in her coming to the front.
However little there was in her wifehood, its name at least was hers. The
tale that Miranda had told was enough, if it were true, to put any woman,
however young she might be, into battle array. Marcia was puzzling her
mind over the question that has been more or less of a weary burden to
every woman since the fatal day that Eve made her great mistake.

David was silent and abstracted at the dinner table, and Marcia absorbed
in her own problems did not feel cut by it. She was trying to determine
whether to blossom out in pink, or to be crushed and set aside into
insignificance in blue, or to choose a happy medium and wear neither. She
ventured a timid little question before David went away again: Did he,
would he,--that is, was there any thing,--any word he would like to say to
her? Would she have to do anything to-night?

David looked at her in surprise. Why, no! He knew of nothing. Just go and
speak pleasantly to every one. He was sure she knew what to do. He had
always thought her very well behaved. She had manners like any woman. She
need not feel shy. No one knew of her peculiar position, and he felt
reasonably sure that the story would not soon get around. Her position
would be thoroughly established before it did, at least. She need not feel
uncomfortable. He looked down at her thinking he had said all that could
be expected of him, but somehow he felt the trouble in the girl's eyes and
asked her gently if there was anything more.

"No," she said slowly, "unless, perhaps--I don't suppose you know what it
would be proper for me to wear."

"Oh, that does not matter in the least," he replied promptly. "Anything.
You always look nice. Why, I'll tell you, wear the frock you had on the
night I came." Then he suddenly remembered the reason why that was a
pleasant memory to him, and that it was not for her sake at all, but for
the sake of one who was lost to him forev