hung my head
in silence. In her place the despicably small pride which makes so
many women deceitful would have been my pride, and would have made me
deceitful too.

"Don't be angry with me, Marian," she said, mistaking my silence.

I only answered by drawing her close to me again. I was afraid of
crying if I spoke. My tears do not flow so easily as they ought--they
come almost like men's tears, with sobs that seem to tear me in pieces,
and that frighten every one about me.

"I have thought of this, love, for many days," she went on, twining and
twisting my hair with that childish restlessness in her fingers, which
poor Mrs. Vesey still tries so patiently and so vainly to cure her
of--"I have thought of it very seriously, and I can be sure of my
courage when my own conscience tells me I am right. Let me speak to
him to-morrow--in your presence, Marian. I will say nothing that is
wrong, nothing that you or I need be ashamed of--but, oh, it will ease
my heart so to end this miserable concealment! Only let me know and
feel that I have no deception to answer for on my side, and then, when
he has heard what I have to say, let him act towards me as he will."

She sighed, and put her head back in its old position on my bosom. Sad
misgivings about what the end would be weighed upon my mind, but still
distrusting myself, I told her that I would do as she wished. She
thanked me, and we passed gradually into talking of other things.

At dinner she joined us again, and was more easy and more herself with
Sir Percival than I have seen her yet. In the evening she went to the
piano, choosing new music of the dexterous, tuneless, florid kind. The
lovely old melodies of Mozart, which poor Hartright was so fond of, she
has never played since he left. The book is no longer in the
music-stand. She took the volume away herself, so that nobody might
find it out and ask her to play from it.

I had no opportunity of discovering whether her purpose of the morning
had changed or not, until she wished Sir Percival good-night--and then
her own words informed me that it was unaltered. She said, very
quietly, that she wished to speak to him after breakfast, and that he
would find her in her sitting-room with me. He changed colour at those
words, and I felt his hand trembling a little when it came to my turn
to take it. The event of the next morning would decide his future
life, and he evidently knew it.

I went in, as usual, throug