harder yet at Marion; then, with a flash of pride and her
hands clasping before her, she drew herself up, and added: "Am I not
worthy to be his wife now? Am I not beautiful--for a savage?"

There was no common vanity in the action. It had a noble kind of
wistfulness, and a serenity that entirely redeemed it. Marion dated
her own happiness from the time when Lali met her accident, for in
the evening of that disastrous day she issued to Captain Hume Vidall a
commission which he could never--wished never--to resign. Since then she
had been at her best,--we are all more or less selfish creatures,--and
had grown gentler, curbing the delicate imperiousness of her nature,
and frankly, and without the least pique, taken a secondary position of
interest in the household, occasioned by Lali's popularity. She looked
Lali up and down with a glance in which many feelings met, and then,
catching her hands warmly, she lifted them, put them on her own
shoulders, and said: "My dear beautiful savage, you are fit and worthy
to be Queen of England; and Frank, when he comes--"

"Hush!" said the other dreamily, and put a finger on Marion's lips. "I
know what you are going to say, but I do not wish to hear it. He did
not love me then. He used me--" She shuddered, put her hands to her eyes
with a pained, trembling motion, then threw her head back with a quick
sigh. "But I will not speak of it. Come, we are for the dance, Marion.
It is the last, to-night. To-morrow--" She paused, looking straight
before her, lost in thought.

"Yes, to-morrow, Lali?"

"I do not know about to-morrow," was the reply. "Strange things come to
me."

Marion longed to tell her then and there the great news, but she was
afraid to do so, and was, moreover, withheld by the remembrance that it
had been agreed she should not be told. She said nothing.

At eleven o'clock the rooms were filled. For the fag end of the season,
people seemed unusually brilliant. The evening itself was not so hot as
common, and there was an extra array of distinguished guests. Marion
was nervous all the evening, though she showed little of it, being most
prettily employed in making people pleased with themselves. Mrs. Armour
also was not free from apprehension. In reply to inquiries concerning
her son she said, as she had often said during the season, that he might
be back at any time now. Lali had answered always in the same fashion,
and had shown no sign that his continued absence was si