mother?

And the "mother" seemed to fall naturally

from her lips as she spoke.

"If you don't mind," replied Mrs. Kroom.

“Then I will gladly stay,” said Murva, “and ”—turning to Donald-"you will be here again in the morning?" "Yes, early in the morning," he replied. "But do not sit up! Go to bed, and get your rest. The nurse can

do all that is necessary."

Mrs. Kroom had lately been obliged to call in the services of a night-nurse, sorely against her will, because of the expense; for she must have provision for her old age. Murva promised to do so, and found herself later in her old room where she had not slept since leaving her father's house, all those years ago, driven out by him in his anger which had not yet, she feared, burned itself away. Her rest was fitful and broken, and she finally started suddenly from her uneasy slumber, broad awake as if she had not been in bed at all, to find the daylight struggling through the windows. She felt impelled to rise and go downstairs at once. She experienced none of the lassitude which she frequently felt on waking, and which she had to shake off by a vigorous effort of will before she could get up.

Almost without her own volition she sprang out of bed, thrust her feet into slippers, and, throwing on a dressing-gown, ran hastily but lightly and noiselessly downstairs and into the sitting-room. Her stepmother lay asleep upon a lounge, and as she looked through the door of her father's room she saw that the nurse was asleep in her high-backed chair. She passed quickly to the bedside and stood there, made powerless to move by what she saw.

Like a thief in the night death had come upon his victim and was just loosing the last hold upon things

worldly. Nicholas Kroom was drawing almost his last breath. With a spasmodic movement his head turned toward Murva, and she saw in his eyes a wild imploring as they rested upon her, a look as if he begged her to hold him back from that which was tearing him away; a look which had none of the old anger and unforgivingness, but was entreating and beseeching instead, while the eyes stared at something beyond her which imprinted horror and despair upon his face. It was pinched and drawn and a grey whiteness was over it, through which that look made its way, chilling Murva's very soul within her.

Even as she looked at him, with a little struggle in his throat which she saw but did not hear, for it was noiseless, his breath ceased, while his eyes still stared at and through her.

The absolute stillness of it all was appalling, and held her for the moment without the power of speech or motion. The nurse moved a little in her chair, and this broke the spell. She called loudly, and her stepmother sprang to the door, while the aroused nurse grasped the side of the bed as her eyes fell upon the dead face of Nicholas Kroom.

In the grey morning light his soul had been wrested from him by a despot more powerful than he had ever been; while the only watcher at its departure was the child he had rejected-when she ceased to be his vassal.

15

CHAPTER XXI.

THE funeral was over. That which had been called Nicholas Kroom was put out of sight, and his townspeople went about their accustomed ways with a remembrance of him which was best expressed by silence.

Harold Deering had come to Millville at once on receipt of Dr. Crawford's telegram announcing the death, and had sought to soothe and comfort his wife by every means in his power when he heard of the shock which she had experienced. Murva was deeply thankful that she had remained in her father's house that night; yet there was before her, for days, that awful grey-white face with its dumb imploring.

She remembered old John Wilson's views of death: the mountain on the other side of "the valley of the shadow" which had to be climbed and from her inmost heart went up the prayer that, if this were so, there might be some kindly hand held forth to her father as he came out of the dark valley and found himself at the base of that mountain on whose top lay what he had to, sometime, reach. For he must be tired, frightened and bewildered, she thought to herself, and surely the good God made provision for all His creatures according to their needs. If these did not cease with the giving up of the mortal breath, then the supply for them could not cease either. "Like as a father pitieth his children," old John had said. She could leave him to the care

and guidance which, unlike the earthly, would never sleep while even one of these little ones was in extremity.

She did not mourn over her father's death. Why should she? She did better then that she cleared

:

from her remembrance of him the last vestige of resentment, and filled it with the best she knew of him, feeling that there was a better above that. She voluntarily resigned, in the interest of her stepmother, all claim upon her father's small estate, feeling that she was the one most in need of it—a decision in which her husband promptly acquiesced.

Mrs. Kroom decided to return to her old home as soon as the house she lived in could be sold. Her husband's business had been disposed of long before his death. With what remained to her, and the proceeds of this sale, she could live more than comfortably in the surroundings she had left to become Nicholas Kroom's wife.

On the third day after the funeral Harold Deering returned to New York alone, granting his wife's request that she be allowed to remain for a few days longer. Murva had a half-defined purpose in mind which she wished to carry out before returning home. She did not want to make any mistake; did not want to allow any feeling to wax strong within her which could be clearly shown her to be unworthy of a woman and a wife. She had a strong sense of justice, and this led her to examine carefully her own motives and conclusions, to see if misconceptions prompted them. Look which way she would, one bald fact confronted her at every turn the duty of the wife because of the nature of the husband, and the latitude tacitly allowed him for the same reason.

But this same sense of justice, and an instinct as well, made her rebel against this accepted fact as a necessary and inevitable one. What could she do? What step should she take to satisfy herself one way or the other? She wanted to know. She wanted to do everything in her power that would give her knowledge on these vital questions, for they were vital ones. They lay at the foundation of the marriage relation, and upon their answer depended the nature of the marriage built upon it. True marriage is prompted by love, she argued. Of course! Everybody knew that! But what is love? Something which endures for ever? How could that be known? From evidence offered it seemed to endure for a season.

What was that feeling, called love, which prompts marriage? What its nature? She had the conviction that there was a deathless love; but she was beginning to see that this was not the feeling of a lover for his loved one, though her feeling might be higher than his and come nearer to it.

But she could get help in one direction. Dr. Crawford was an old and trusted friend, as well as a physician. He was competent to put one side of the matter fairly before her, and would respect her confidence at the same time, did she feel it necessary to give it to him. By remaining a few days she could confer with him as the physician who could give her positive and reliable information regarding the physical constitution of the husband, and if it made his needs on that line so imperative and all-absorbing as to shape everything else to themselves.

A day or two after her husband's return to the city, Donald invited her to accompany him on his drive to a patient who lived some distance in the country.

“It