oment, as I am. But you have told me that you
love me. Ask your father, and he will tell you that, as it
is so, it is your duty to promise to be my wife.

I may be away for a day or two,--perhaps for a week. Write
to me at Trafford,--Trafford Park, Shrewsbury,--and say
that it shall be so. I sometimes think that you do not
understand how absolutely my heart is set upon you,--so
that no pleasures are pleasant to me, no employments
useful, except in so far as I can make them so by thinking
of your love.

Dearest, dearest Marion,
Your own,

HAMPSTEAD.

Remember there must not be a word about a lord inside the
envelope. It is very bad to me when it comes from Mrs.
Roden, or from a friend such as she is; but it simply
excruciates me from you. It seems to imply that you are
determined to regard me as a stranger.

She read the letter a dozen times, pressing it to her lips and to
her bosom. She might do that at least. He would never know how she
treated this only letter that she ever had received from him, the
only letter that she would receive. These caresses were only such as
those which came from her heart, to relieve her solitude. It might be
absurd in her to think of the words he had spoken, and to kiss the
lines which he had written. Were she now on her deathbed that would
be permitted to her. Wherever she might lay her head till the last
day should come that letter should be always within her reach. "My
girl, my own one, my love, my treasure!" How long would it last with
him? Was it not her duty to hope that the words were silly words,
written as young men do write, having no eagerness of purpose,--just
playing with the toy of the moment? Could it be that she should wish
them to be true, knowing, as she did, that his girl, his love, his
treasure, as he called her, could never be given up to him? And yet
she did believe them to be true, knew them to be true, and took
an exceeding joy in the assurance. It was as though the beauty
and excellence of their truth atoned to her for all else that was
troublous to her in the condition of her life. She had not lived in
vain. Her life now could never be a vain and empty space of time,
as it had been consecrated and ennobled and blessed by such a love
as this. And yet she must make the suffering to him as light as
possible. Though there might be an ecstasy of joy to her in knowing
that she was loved, there could be nothin