It was three o’clock before Marion regained consciousness, crawled to her mother, and crouched in dumb convulsions in her arms.

“What can we do, my darling?” the mother asked at last.

“Die—thank God, we have the strength left!”

“Yes, my love,” was the faint answer.

“No one must ever know. We will hide quickly every trace of crime. They will think we strolled to Lover’s Leap and fell over the cliff, and my name will always be sweet and clean—you understand—come, we must hurry——”

With swift hands, her blue eyes shining with a strange light, the girl removed the shreds of torn clothes, bathed, and put on the dress of spotless white she wore the night Ben Cameron kissed her and called her a heroine.

The mother cleaned and swept the room, piled the torn clothes and cord in the fireplace and burned them, dressed herself as if for a walk, softly closed the doors, and hurried with her daughter along the old pathway through the moonlit woods.

At the edge of the forest she stopped and looked back tenderly at the little home shining amid the roses, caught their faint perfume and faltered: 306

“Let’s go back a minute—I want to see his room, and kiss Henry’s picture again.”

“No, we are going to him now—I hear him calling us in the mists above the cliff,” said the girl—“come, we must hurry. We might go mad and fail!”

Down the dim cathedral aisles of the woods, hallowed by tender memories, through which the poet lover and father had taught them to walk with reverent feet and without fear, they fled to the old meeting-place of Love.

On the brink of the precipice, the mother trembled, paused, drew back, and gasped:

“Are you not afraid, my dear?”

“No; death is sweet now,” said the girl. “I fear only the pity of those we love.”

“Is there no other way? We might go among strangers,” pleaded the mother.

“We could not escape ourselves! The thought of life is torture. Only those who hate me could wish that I live. The grave will be soft and cool, the light of day a burning shame.”

“Come back to the seat a moment—let me tell you my love again,” urged the mother. “Life still is dear while I hold your hand.”

As............