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“I dare say Phillippa’s mother would have remembered that Mark Foster is very well off, quite as readily as worse people,” said Isabella, a little spitefully.

I liked her better when she was spiteful than when she was smooth. I didn’t feel so scared of her then.

The marriage was to be at eleven o’clock, and, at nine, I went up to help Phillippa dress. She was no fussy bride, caring much what she looked like. If Owen had been the bridegroom it would have been different. Nothing would have pleased her then; but now it was only just “That will do very well, Aunt Rachel,” without even glancing at it.

Still, nothing could prevent her from looking lovely when she was dressed. My dearie would have been a beauty in a beggarmaid’s rags. In her white dress and veil she was as fair as a queen. And she was as good as she was pretty. It was the right sort of goodness, too, with just enough spice of original sin in it to keep it from spoiling by reason of over-sweetness.

Then she sent me out.

“I want to be alone my last hour,” she said. “Kiss me, Aunt Rachel–MOTHER Rachel.”

When I’d gone down, crying like the old fool I was, I heard a rap at the door. My first thought was to go out and send Isabella to it, for I supposed it was Mark Foster, come ahead of time, and small stomach I had for seeing him. I fall trembling, even yet, when I think, “What if I had sent Isabella to that door?”

But go I did, and opened it, defiant-like, kind of hoping it was Mark Foster to see the tears on my face. I opened it–and staggered back like I’d got a blow.

“Owen! Lord ha’ mercy on us! Owen!” I said, just like that, going cold all over, for it’s the truth that I thought it was his spirit come back to forbid that unholy marriage.

But he sprang right in, and caught my wrinkled old hands in a grasp that was of flesh and blood.

“Aunt Rachel, I’m not too late?” he said, savage-like. “Tell me I’m in time.”

I looked up at him, standing over me there, tall and handsome, no change in him except he was so brown and had a little white scar on his forehead; and, though I couldn’t understand at all, being all bewildered-like, I felt a great deep thankfulness.

“No, you’re not too late,” I said.

“Thank God,” said he, under his breath. And then he pulled me into the parlor and shut the door.

“They told me at the station that Phillippa was to be married to Mark Foster to-day. I couldn’t believe it, but I came here as fast as horse-flesh could bring me. Aunt Rachel, it can’t be true! She can’t care for Mark Foster, even if she had forgotten me!”

“It’s true enough that she is to marry Mark,” I said, half-laughing, half-crying, “but she doesn’t care for him. Every beat of her heart is for you. It’s all her stepma’s doings. Mark has got a mortgage on the place, and he told Isabella Clark that, if Phillippa would marry him, he’d burn the mortgage, and, if she wouldn’t, he’d foreclose. Phillippa is sacrificing herself to save her stepma for her dead father’s sake. It’s all your fault,” I cried, getting over my bewilderment. “We thought you were dead. Why didn’t you come home when you were alive? Why didn’t you write?”

“I DID write, after I got out of the hospital, several times,” he said, “and never a word in answer, Aunt Rachel. What was I to think when Phillippa wouldn’t answer my letters?”

“She never got one,” I cried. “She wept her sweet eyes out over you. SOMEBODY must have got those letters.”