he will marry her now,--when she gets her divorce." She spoke of Mrs.
Maynard, whom her universal toleration not only included in the mercy
which the opinions of the other ladies denied her, but round whom her
romance cast a halo of pretty possibilities as innocently sentimental as
the hopes of a young girl.




IV.

The next morning Grace was sitting beside her patient, with whom she had
spent the night. It was possibly Mrs. Maynard's spiritual toughness which
availed her, for she did not seem much the worse for her adventure: she
had a little fever, and she was slightly hoarser; but she had died none
of the deaths that she projected during the watches of the night, and for
which she had chastened the spirit of her physician by the repeated
assurance that she forgave her everything, and George Maynard everything,
and hoped that they would be good to her poor little Bella. She had the
child brought from its crib to her own bed, and moaned over it; but with
the return of day and the duties of life she appeared to feel that she
had carried her forgiveness far enough, and was again remembering her
injuries against Grace, as she lay in her morning gown on the lounge
which had been brought in for her from the parlor.

"Yes, Grace, I shall always say if I had died and I may die yet--that I
did not wish to go out with Mr. Libby, and that I went purely to please
you. You forced me to go. I can't understand why you did it; for I don't
suppose you wanted to kill us, whatever you did."