"If I thought you were in earnest in saying such a thing as that, you would really provoke me," said Helen, gravely.
"Then you may be sure that I am not in earnest," cried Marion; "for I would do anything sooner than provoke you. No man in the world is worth a single vexed thought between you and me."
It was a few days after this that, everything being at last settled, she finally left the place where she had gained and lost a fortune,—where she had sounded some depths of experience and learned some lessons of wisdom that could not soon be forgotten.
"Marion," said Helen the evening before her departure, "I am going to have a Mass said for my intention to-morrow morning—and, of course, that means you. Will you not come to the church?"
"With pleasure," answered the other, quickly. "Indeed I am not so absolutely a heathen but that I meant to go, in any event. I am setting out anew in life, as it were; and I should like to ask God to bless this second beginning, as I certainly did not ask Him to bless the first."
"Then you will be at the church at eight o'clock?" said Helen. "And afterward breakfast with me, so that you will not need to return here before meeting your train. I should like the last bread that you break in Scarborough to be broken with me."
"It shall be exactly as you wish," observed Marion, touched by the request, which meant more, she knew, than appeared on the surface. For it was not only that Helen wished to renew the link of hospitality—not only that she desired, as she said, that the last bread broken by Marion in Scarborough should be broken with her in token of their renewed amity,—but she wished to show to all the world that had so curiously watched the course of events in which the beautiful stranger was concerned, that their friendly and cousinly relations were unchanged. All this Marion understood without words.
Eight o'clock the next morning found her in the church. As she acknowledged, she had asked no blessing of God on her former beginning of life—that life which had come to such utter failure in every respect; and in the realization of this failure much of her proud self-confidence had forsaken her. She had asked only that opportunity should be given, and she had felt within herself the power to win all that she desired. Opportunity had been given, and she had ended by losing everything, saving only the remnant of her self-respect and Helen's generous affection. These thoughts came to her with force as she knelt in the little chapel, knowing that she was going forth to a new life with diminished prospects of worldly success, but with a deeper knowledge of herself, of the responsibilities of existence, and of the claims of others, than she had possessed before.
Then she remembered how she had knelt in this same place with Brian Earle, and felt herself drawn near to the household of faith. It had been an attraction which had led to nothing, because it had been founded on human rather than on divine love. Now that the human love was lost, had the divine no meaning left? The deep need of her soul answered this; and when she bent her head as the priest at the altar offered the Holy Sacrifice, it was with a more real act of faith and worship than she had made on that day when it seemed as if but a step divided her from the Church of God.
Mass over, she went to say a few words of farewell to Father Byrne, and then accompanied Helen home. It had been a long time since she entered her aunt's house; and the recollections of her first coming into it, and of the welcome which had then met her, seemed to rush upon her as she crossed the threshold. "If it were only to do over again!" she thought, with a pang. When they sat down to breakfast she glanced at the place which she had so often seen Rathborne occupy, and thought that but for her Helen might never have been undeceived, might never have suffered with regard to him. "At least not in the way she has suffered," she said to herself. "In some way, however, she must have suffered sooner or later. Therefore perhaps it is best as it is—for her. But that does not excuse me. If only I might be permitted to make some atonement!"