as rather, as often happens, stayed
and held upright by the burden that had been laid upon her, and it was
with fortitude if not dignity that she appealed to us for our counsel,
and if possible our help, in a matter about which she had already
consulted the doctor. "The doctor says that the excitement cannot hurt
Edith; it may even help her, to propose it. I should like to do it, but
if you do not think well of it, I will not do it. I know it is too late
now to make up to her for the past," said Mrs. Bentley, and here she
gave way to the grief she had restrained hitherto.

"There is no one else," she went on, "who has been so intimately
acquainted with the facts of my daughter's engagement--no one else that
I can confide in or appeal to."

We both murmured that she was very good; but she put our politeness
somewhat peremptorily aside.

"It is the only thing I can do now, and it is useless to do that now. It
will be no reparation for the past, and it will be for myself and not
for her, as all that I have done in the past has been; but I wish to
know what you think of their getting married now."

I am afraid that if we had said what we thought of such a tardy and
futile proof of penitence we should have brought little comfort to the
mother's heart, but we looked at each other in the disgust we both felt
and said there would be a sacred fitness in it.

She was apparently much consoled.

It was touching enough, and I at least was affected by her tears; I am
not so sure my wife was. But she had instantly to consider how best to
propose the matter to Miss Bentley, and to act upon her decision.

After all, as she reported the fact to me later, it was very simple to
suggest her mother's wish to the girl, who listened to it with a perfect
intelligence in which there was no bitterness.

"They think I am going to die," she said, quietly, "and I can understand
how she feels. It seems such a mockery; but if she wishes it; and
Arthur--"

It was my part to deal with Glendenning, and I did not find it so easy.

"Marriage is for life and for earth," he said, solemnly, and I thought
very truly. "In the resurrection we shall be one another's without it. I
don't like to go through the form of such a sacrament idly; it seems
like a profanation of its mystery."

"But if Miss Bentley--"

"She will think whatever I do; I shall feel as she does," he answered,
with dignity.

"Yes, I know," I urged. "It would not be for her; it wo