"Let me die!" No other prayer went from her lips, although she sat there from sunset until the early dawn of the new day flushed in the glorious eastern skies.
While she sits there, with that despairing prayer rising from the depths of her despairing heart, we will tell the story of Marian Arleigh's penance.
CHAPTER II.
"You cannot be cruel. You cannot think it is wrong to meet me. My whole life, with everything in it, belongs to you. If you told me to lie down here and die at your feet, I should do so and smile. Why do you say it is wrong, Marion?"
A lovely, child-like face was raised to the speaker.
"I do not know. I have a vague idea that anything requiring secrecy must be wrong. Is it not so?"
He laughed.
"No, sweet. What would the great diplomatists of the world say to such a theory? Rather try to believe that what is stolen is sweet."
She smiled, but the anxious expression still lingered on her lovely young face. He noticed it.