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138 WILD MARGARET,
would not touch it! I~I had my savings, and I lived on
them——”’ oo
‘““That was right !—that was right!’ murmured Mar- °
garet, her womanly heart aglow. ;
‘*And—and I thought that I could learn, to let him go,
and live without him! But--but it was too hard a lesson!
Icould not! You see, I loved him so!” .
. **Poor girl, poor girl! Oh; hewasa villain! You should
have——”’ she stopped.
“What should I have done? Gone to him and re-
proached him? Oh, youdo not know him! It would have
made him hate me, and parted us forever and ever!”
‘*The law—there is justice,’’ said Margaret.
The girl shook her head in dull misery. i
‘No, my pride was too great for that. Besides, I did
not want my friends to know how I was treated. There
was only one thing to do’’—she paused, and her dark, rest-
less eyes fixed themselves covertly on Margaret’s face as
if she were waiting for a cue. . Co
“What was that?” breathed Margaret. bending forward.
‘To go to the girl he had deserted me for, to go to her
and pray her to let him come back to me. He was decelv-
ing her, leading her astray, and she might turn on me au
laugh at me. But she Jooked good, and perhaps, who
knew, she might listen to my prayer! She could not love
_ him better than I do, and if she did, she might not be so
lost to all shame as to keep him from his wife!”’
_ ‘No, no! you were right!” said Margaret. ‘‘ Why do
_ you not go to her?”’
--“T have come to her!’ panted the girl. ‘Oh, Mrs. -
?
Stanley !——’’ but she stopped perforce, for Margaret §
open-eyed bewilderment showed that the words were los
upon her. | _
‘You have come?’ she said. ‘‘Come where— to
whom?” . .
‘‘T have come here, to you!’ exclaimed the girl,
stretching out her hands. ‘‘ Oh, dear lady, you are beat”
tiful, ten times more beautiful than Iam; but you loo
good and kind. Have mercy on, me, and give me bac
my husband!’
Margaret shrank back, paling a little, but once aga
convinced that she was in the presence of a mad woman.
Yes, that was the key to the whole scene. The womall
was one of those monomaniacs who are possessed by tne
shadow of an imagined wrong, and had pitched upon ner
as the person who had injured her! She looked towal
the door and half rose, but before she could rise from 1e0
in
chair, the girl threw herself on her knees’ before her,
caught at her dress, -
en cet taal
= , Sy. og 3