d have
everything he liked; why, _I_ would undertake to stay for a while at
first, stay and amuse him, play checkers and all that. It's a pity Mrs.
Rutherford dislikes me so," Garda concluded, in a tone of regret.

"Perhaps you would undertake to marry _him_, by way of a change?" said
Margaret, leaving her again, with another sharp movement that pulled the
dress from the touch of the humble little hand.

"There are some things, Margaret, that even _you_ must not say to me,"
Garda answered, smiling bravely and brightly, though the tears were just
behind.

And then Margaret's cruel coldness broke; she came to her, took her
hands, and held them across her hot eyes. "Forgive me, Garda, I don't
know what I am saying. You don't mean it, but you keep turning the knife
in the wound. I shall never do any of the things you talk of, I shall go
on staying here. I must bear my life--the life I made for myself, with
my eyes open; no one made it for me, I made it for myself, and I must
bear it as well as I can. I have said cruel things, but it was
because--" She dropped the girl's hands. "I have always thought you
so--so beautiful; and if you care for him, as you now tell me you do,
what more natural than that he--" But she could not finish, her face
contracted with a quiver, and took on suddenly and strangely the tints
of age.

"I am not worthy to tie your shoe!" cried Garda, in her soft voice,
which even in high excitement could not rise above its sweet tones.

But Margaret had controlled herself again, the spectre face had
vanished. "When you tell me that he has changed so much, that he is
growing harsh, hard,--that is the worst for me," she said. "I can bear
everything about myself, everything here; but I cannot bear that." She
paused. "Men are all alike"--she began again. Then she put that aside
too--her last bitterness. "Garda," she resumed, "I shall go on living
here, as I have said; and it is for always; I am, I intend to be, as far
removed from his life as though I were dead. And now--if you will marry
him? You are so beautiful he cannot help but love you, you needn't be
afraid! You must never come here--I tell you that in the beginning. And
he must never come. But"--she moved swiftly forward and took the girl in
her arms with a passionate tenderness--"but your little children, Garda,
if you should have any, if they could come, it would be good for me; my
life would not be so bitter and hard; I should be a better woman t