e reach of suffering. I must
finish my lonely way."

Mrs. Laudersdale looked up slowly and met his earnest glance.

"Must I leave you?" she exclaimed, with a wild terror in her tone. "Do
you mean that I shall go away? Oh, you need not care for me,--you need
never love me,--you may always be cold,--but I must serve you, live with
you, die with you!" And she sprang forward with outstretched arms.

He caught her before her foot became entangled in the long folds of her
skirt, drew her to himself, and held her. What he murmured was inaudible
to the others; but a tint redder than roses are swam to her cheek, and a
smile broke over her face like a reflection in rippling water. She held
his arm tightly in her hand, and erect and proud, as it were with a new
life, bent toward Roger Raleigh.

"You see!" said she. "My husband loves me. And I,--it seems at this
moment that I have never loved any other than him!"

There came a quick step along the matting, the handle of the door turned
in Marguerite's resisting grasp, and Mrs. Purcell's light muslins swept
through. Mr. Raleigh advanced to meet her,--a singular light upon his
face, a strange accent of happiness in his voice.

"Since you seem to be a part of the affair," she said in a low tone,
while her lip quivered with anger and scorn, "concerning which I have
this moment been informed, pray, take to Mr. Lauderdale my brother's
request to enter the house of Day, Knight, and Company, from this day."

"Has he made such a request?" asked Mr. Raleigh.

"He shall make it!" she murmured swiftly, and was gone.

That night a telegram flashed over the wires, and thenceforth, on the
great financial tide, the ship Day, Knight, and Company lowered its peak
to none.

The day crept through until evening, deepening into genuine heat, and
Marguerite sat waiting for Mr. Raleigh to come and bid her farewell.
It seemed that his plans were altered, or possibly he was gone, and at
sunset she went out alone. The cardinals that here and there showed
their red caps above the bank, the wild roses that still lined the way,
the grapes that blossomed and reddened and ripened year after year
ungathered, did not once lift her eyes. She sat down, at last, on an old
fallen trunk cushioned with moss, half of it forever wet in the brook
that babbled to the lake, and waited for the day to quench itself in
coolness and darkness.

"Ah!" said Mr. Raleigh, leaping from the other side of the brook to the
mo