differently, as if he had a right to. Well, we talked half the night
last night, and he went home to write the letter. He promised me not to
mail it till he'd seen me once more; but nothing will make any
difference."

"You won't beseech him?"

"No. He is a man. He must decide."

"You won't tell him what depends on it!"

"Nothing depends on it," said Mary, calmly. "Nothing except his own
happiness. I shall find mine in letting him accept his life according to
his own free will."

There was something majestic in her mental attitude. Wilmer felt how
noble her maturity was to be, and told himself, with a thrill of pride,
that he had done well to love her.

"Marshby is coming," he said. "I want to show you both the picture."

Mary shook her head. "Not this morning," she told him, and he could see
how meagre canvas and paint must seem to her after her vision of the
body of life. But he took her hand.

"Come," he said, gently; "you must."

Still holding her flowers, she went with him, though her mind abode with
her lost cause. Marshby halted when he saw them coming, and Jerome had
time to look at him. The man held himself wilfully erect, but his face