given you more sadness than hope. Yet I have absolute faith in you
because of what papa said to me last night. I had asked him how I
could cease to be what I was, be different, you know, and he said,
'Develop the best in your own nature naturally.' If you will do
this I shall have no fears."

"Yet I have been positively brutal to you to-night."

"No man can be so strong as you are and be trifled with. I understand
that now, Mr. Lane. You had no sentimentality to be touched, and
my tears did not move you in the least until you believed in my
honest contrition."

"I have revealed to you one of my weaknesses. I am rarely angry,
but when I am, my passion, after it is over, frightens me. Marian,
you do forgive me in the very depths of your heart?"

"I do indeed,--that is, if I have anything to forgive under the
circumstances."

"Poor little girl! how pale you are! I fear you are ill."

"I shall soon be better,--better all my life for your forgiveness
and promise."

"Thank God that we are parting in this manner," he said. "I don't
like to think of what might have happened, for I was in the devil's
own mood. Marian, if you make good the words you have spoken
to-night, if you become the woman you can be, you will have a power
possessed by few. It was not your beauty merely that fascinated me,