And to keep it still a secret was, she saw clearly, her duty.  She might rebel against it, she might feel that it was wicked and cruel, the spoiling of her life to save these others, but it was her duty nevertheless.  Because she loved Crawford—­and she was realizing now that she did love him dearly, that there could never be another love in the world for her—–­she must send him away, she must end the affair at once.  If she did that she could save him from learning of his father’s disgrace, could avert the otherwise inevitable quarrel between them, could make his career and his future secure.  And her uncles would be happy, the skeleton would remain undisturbed.

Yes, she must do it.  But it was so hard to do.  Philosophy did not help in the least.  She had tried to convince herself when she gave up her school work that it meant the end of her romance also.  She had tried to tell Crawford so.  But she had been weak, she had permitted herself to hope.  She had realized that for the present, perhaps for years, she must work for and with the old men who had been father and mother both to her, but—­he had said so—­Crawford would wait for her, and some day—­perhaps—­

But now there was no perhaps—­now she knew.  She must receive no more letters from him.  She must never see him again.  The break must be absolute and final.  And there was but one way to bring that about.  He had said repeatedly that only her declaration that she did not love him would ever prevent his marrying her.  Very well, then for his sake she must lie to him; she must tell him that very thing.  She must write him that she had been considering the matter and had decided she could never love him enough to become his wife.

It was almost two o’clock when she reached this decision but she sat down at her desk to write then and there the letter containing it, the last letter she would ever write him.  And when the morning light came streaming in at the windows she still sat there, the letter unwritten.  She had made many beginnings, but not an end.  She must try again; she was too tired, too nervous, too hopeless and heartbroken to make another attempt that morning, but before the day was over it should be done.  She threw herself down upon the bed but she could not sleep.  Why had she been selected to bear this burden?  What had she done that God should delight to torture her in this way?

CHAPTER XXV

That difficult letter was never written.  In the afternoon, business at the store being rather quiet and Mrs. Atkins, the nurse, desiring an hour’s leave to do an errand in the village, Mary had taken her place in the sickroom.  Zoeth was improving slowly, so the doctor said, but he took very little interest in what went on, speaking but seldom, asking few questions, and seeming to be but partially sensible of his surroundings.  Best not to try to rouse him, the physician said.  Little by little he would gain mentally as well as physically and, by and by, there was reason to hope, would be up and about again.  Probably, however, he would never be so strong as he had been before his sudden seizure, the cause of which—­if there had been a definite cause—­was still unknown.