door behind them and
led her gently in.

CHAPTER XXVII

He made her go into the parlor and sit down and she was all unnerved by
his gentle ways. The tears would come in spite of her. He took his own
fine wedding handkerchief and wiped them softly off her hot cheeks. He
untied the bonnet that was not hers, and flung it far into a corner in the
room. Marcia thought he put force into the fling. Then he unfolded the
shawl from her shoulders and threw that into another corner. Kate's
beautiful thread lace shawl. Marcia felt a hysterical desire to laugh, but
David's voice was steady and quiet when he spoke as one might speak to a
little child in trouble.

"There now, dear," he said. He had never called her dear before. "There,
that was an ordeal, and I'm glad, it's over. It will never trouble us that
way again. Let us put it aside and never think about it any more. We have
our own lives to live. I want you to go with me to-morrow morning to see
the train start if you feel able. We must start early and you must take a
good rest. Would you like to go?"

Marcia's face like a radiant rainbow answered for her as she smiled behind
her tears, and all the while he talked David's hand, as tender as a
woman's, was passing back and forth on Marcia's hot forehead and smoothing
the hair. He talked on quietly to soothe her, and give her a chance to
regain her composure, speaking of a few necessary arrangements for the
morning's ride. Then he said, still in his quiet voice: "Now dear, I want
you to go to bed, for we must start rather early, but first do you think
you could sing me that little song you were singing the day I came home?
Don't if you feel too tired, you know."

Then Marcia, an eager light in her eyes, sprang up and went to the piano,
and began to play softly and sing the tender words she had sung once
before when he was listening and she knew it not.

"Dearest, believe,
When e'er we part:
Lonely I grieve,
In my sad heart:--"

Kate, standing within the chintz curtains across the yard shedding angry
tears upon her purple silk, heard presently the sweet tones of the piano,
which might have been hers; heard her sister's voice singing, and began to
understand that she must bear the punishment of her own rash deeds.

The room had grown from a purple dusk into quiet darkness while Marcia was
singing, for the sun w