e o'clock, Margaret spoke. "Celestine?"

A tall figure appeared from a dark corner.

"I told you not to sit up to-night; I feel perfectly well."

"There's a lounge here, Miss Margaret. I can lay down nice as can be."

"No, you are not to stay; I do not wish it."

Celestine demurred; but as Margaret held to her point, she yielded
finally, and went out. Some minutes after the door had closed, with a
slow effort Margaret raised herself. Then she sat resting for a while on
the edge of her bed. Her hair, braided by Celestine in two long plaits
whose soft ends curled, gave her the look of a school-girl; but the face
was very far from that of a school-girl, in the faint light of the
night-lamp the large sad eyes and parted lips were those of a woman. She
rose to her feet at last, feet fair on the dark carpet, her long white
draperies, bordered with lace, clung about her. With a step that still
betrayed her weakness, she crossed the room to a desk, unlocked it, and
took something out,--a little picture in a slender gilt frame. She stood
looking at this for a moment, then she sank down beside the lounge,
resting her arm and head upon it, and holding her poor treasure to her
heart. She held it closely, the sharp edge of the frame made a deep dent
there. She was glad that it hurt her, that it bruised the white flesh
and left a pain. At first her eyes remained dry. Then her wretchedness
overcame her, and she began to cry; being a woman, she must cry. Her
life stretched out before her,--if only she were old! But she might live
forty years more--forty years! "And I have sent him away from me. Oh,
how can I bear it!"--this was what she was saying to herself again and
again.

If the man whose picture she held upon her heart could have heard the
words she spoke to him that night--the unspeakable tenderness of her
love for him, the strength, the unconscious violence almost, of its
sweet overwhelming tide--no bolts, no bars, no promises even, could have
kept him from her.

But he could not hear. Only that Unseen Presence who knows all our
secrets, our pitiful, aching secrets--only this Counsellor heard
Margaret that night. This silent Friend of ours is always merciful, more
merciful than man would ever be; for the unhappy wife, now prone on the
couch, shaken with sobs; now lying for the moment forgetful of reality,
her eyes full of adoring dreams; now starting up with the flush of
exaltation, of self-sacrifice--only to fall back ag