he girl was crazy as she went back to her fowls and Christmas
pudding, leaving Lucy to find her way alone to Arthur's study, which
looked so like its owner, with his dressing-gown across the lounge,
just where he had thrown it, his slippers under the table and his
arm-chair standing near the table, where he sat when he asked Lucy to
be his wife, and where she now sat down, panting for breath and gazing
dreamily around with the look of a frightened bird when seeking for
some avenue of escape from an appalling danger. There was no escape,
and, with a moan, she laid her head upon the table and prayed that
Arthur might come quickly while she had sense and strength to tell
him. She heard his step at last, and rose up to meet him, smiling a
little at his sudden start when he saw her there.

"It's only I," she said, shedding back the clustering curls from her
pallid face, and grasping the chair to steady herself and keep from
falling. "I am not here to frighten you, I've come to do you good--to
set you free. Oh, Arthur, you do not know how terribly you have been
wronged, and I did not know it, either, till a few days ago. She never
received your letter--Anna never did. If she had she would have
answered yes, and have been in my place now; but she is going to be
there. I give you up to Anna. I'm here to tell you so. But oh, Arthur,
it hurts--it hurts."

He knew it hurt by the agonizing expression of her face, but he could
not go near her for a moment, so overwhelming was his surprise at what
he saw and heard. But, when the first shock to them both was past, and
he could listen to her more rational account of what she knew and what
she was there to do, he refused to listen. He would not be free. He
would keep his word, he said. Matters had gone too far to be suddenly
ended. He held her to his promise and she must be his wife.

"Can you tell me truly that you love me more than Anna?" Lucy asked, a
ray of hope dawning for an instant upon her heart, but fading into
utter darkness as Arthur hesitated to answer.

He did love Anna best, though never had Lucy been so near supplanting
even her as at that moment, when she stood before him and told him he
was free. There was something in the magnitude of her generosity which
touched a tender chord and made her dearer to him than she had ever
been.

"I can make you very happy," he said at last, and Lucy replied:

"Yes, but yourself--how with yourself? Would you be happy, too? No,
Ar