for the first
time her courage forsook her.

"I can not bear this," she returned, and her young voice grew thin and
sharp. "Why do you not speak plainly and tell me what you mean? Why do
you ask me to save Hugh--my Hugh--when I am ready to give up my whole
life to him? You speak as if his marriage with me would bring him a
curse."

"As it most surely would to him and to his children, Miss Ferrers.
Margaret--I may call you Margaret, for I knew you as a child--it is no
fault of yours if that be the truth. My dear, has no one told you
about your mother?"

She looked at him with wide-open, startled eyes. "My mother, Sir
Wilfred! no, I was only seven when she died. I think," knitting her
white brows as though she were trying to recall that childish past,
"that she was very ill--she had to go away for a long time, and my
poor father seemed very sad. I remember he cried dreadfully at her
funeral, and Raby told me I ought to have cried too."

"I loved your mother, Margaret," returned the old man, and his mouth
twitched under his white mustache. "You are not like her; she was
dark, but very beautiful. Yes, she was ill, with that deadly
hereditary illness that we call by another name; so ill that for years
before her death her husband could not see her."

"You mean--" asked Margaret, but her dry white lips refused to finish
the sentence. Sir Wilfred looked at her pityingly, as he answered--

"She was insane. It was in the family--they told me so, and that was
why I did not ask her to marry me. She was beautiful, and so many
loved her--your father and I among the number. Now you know, Margaret,
that while my heart bleeds for you both, I ask you to release my son."

CHAPTER IV.

"WHEN WE TWO PARTED."

Nay--sometimes seems it I could even bear
To lay down humbly this love-crown I wear,
Steal from my palace, helpless, hopeless, poor,
And see another queen it at the door--
If only that the king had done no wrong,
If this my palace where I dwelt so long
Were not defiled by falsehood entering in.
There is no loss but change; no death but sin;
No parting, save the slow corrupting pain
Of murdered faith that never lives again.

MISS MULOCK.

The following evening Margaret walked down the narrow path leading to
the shore. It was a glorious evening, warm with the dying sunset,
gorgeous with red and golden light.

Broad margins of yellow sand