“I, Mr. Harrington!” and Edith started quickly.  “The sign is not true.  I shall never marry, never.  I shall live here always, if you’ll let me, but I do want you to have a wife.  You will be so much happier, I think.  Shall I propose one for you?”

“Edith,” Richard answered, “sit close to me while I tell you of one I once wished to make my wife.”

Edith drew nearer to him, and he placed upon her head the hands which were cold and clammy as if their owner were nerving himself for some mighty effort.

“Edith, in my early manhood I loved a young girl, and I thought my affection returned, but a wealthier, older man came between us, and she chose his riches in preference to walking in my shadow, for such she termed my father.”

“But she’s repented, Mr. Harrington—­she surely has,” and Edith dropped her work in her earnestness to defend Grace Atherton.  “She is sorry for what she made you suffer; she has loved you through all, and would be yours now if you wish it, I am sure.  You do wish it, Richard.  You will forgive Grace Atherton,” and in her excitement Edith knelt before him, pleading for her friend.

Even before he answered her she knew she pleaded in vain, but she was not prepared for what followed the silence Richard was first to break.

“Grace Atherton can never be to me more than what she is, a tried, respected friend.  My boyish passion perished long ago, and into my later life another love has crept, compared with which my first was as the darkness to the full noonday.  I did not think to talk of this to-night, but something compels me to do so—­tells me the time has come, and Edith, you must hear me before you speak, but sit here where I can touch you, and when I’m through if what I’ve said meets with a responsive chord, lay your hand in mine, and I shall know the nature of your answer.”

It was coming now—­the scene which Arthur foresaw when, sitting in the Deering woods, with life and sense crushed out, he gave his Edith up to one more worthy than himself.  It was the foreshadowing of the “Sacrifice,” the first step taken toward it, and as one who, seeing his destiny wrapping itself about him fold on fold, sits down stunned and powerless, so Edith sat just where he bade her sit, and listened to his story.

“Years ago, Edith, a solitary, wretched man I lived in my dark world alone, weary of life, weary of every thing, and in my weariness I was even beginning to question the justice of my Creator for having dealt so harshly with me, when one day a wee little singing bird, whose mother nest had been made desolate, fluttered down at my feet, tired like myself, and footsore even with the short distance it had come on life’s rough journey.  There was a note in the voice of this sinking bird which spoke to me of the past, and so my interest grew in the helpless thing until at last it came to nestle at my side, not timidly, for such was not its nature, but as if it had a right to be there—­a right to be caressed and loved as I caressed and loved it, for I did learn to love it, Edith, so much, oh, so much, and the sound of its voice was sweeter to me than the music of the Swedish nightingale, who has filled the world with wonder.