velled at his coolness. Her heart was gripped with fear, and yet
leaping with joy at David's words. He had not seen Kate but once. He had
known she was there and yet had kept away. Hannah's insinuations were
false. Mr. Temple's words were untrue. She had known it all the time, yet
what sorrow they had given her!

"By the way, Marcia," said David, turning toward her with a smile that
seemed to erase the sternness in his voice but a moment before. "Did you
not write me some news? Miss Hannah, you are to be congratulated I
believe. Lemuel is a good man. I wish you much happiness."

And thus did David, with a pleasant speech, turn aside Hannah Heath's
dart. Yet while she went from the house with a smile and a sound of
pleasant wishes in her ears, she carried with her a bitter heart and a
revengeful one.

David was suddenly brought face to face with the thing he had to tell
Marcia. He sat watching her as she went back and forth from pantry to
kitchen, and at last he came and stood beside her and took her hands in
his looking down earnestly into her face. It seemed terrible to him to
tell this thing to the innocent girl, now, just when he was growing
anxious to win her confidence, but it must be told, and better now than
later lest he might be tempted not to tell it at all.

"Marcia!" He said the name tenderly, with an inflection he had never used
before. It was not lover-like, nor passionate, but it reached her heart
and drew her eyes to his and the color to her cheeks. She thought how
different his clasp was from Harry Temple's hateful touch. She looked up
at him trustingly, and waited.

"You heard what I said to Hannah Heath just now, about--your----" He paused,
dissatisfied--"about Mrs. Leavenworth"--it was as if he would set the
subject of his words far from them. Marcia's heart beat wildly,
remembering all that she had been told, yet she looked bravely, trustingly
into his eyes.

"It was true what I told her. I met Mrs. Leavenworth but once while I was
away. It was in her own home and she sent for me saying she was in
trouble. She told me that she was in terrible anxiety lest I would not
forgive her. She begged me to say that I forgave her, and when I told her
I did she asked me to kiss her once to prove it. I was utterly overcome
and did so, but the moment my lips touched hers I knew that I was doing
wrong and I put her from me. She begged me to remain, and I now know that
she was utterly false from the first. It