“Miss Marlowe! Marion!” cried Adele Ray, as she clasped Marion in her arms. “How glad I am to see you again, but how unutterably unpleasant to find you in a hospital!”
“As brave as ever, I hear,” were Archie Ray’s first words, as he extended both hands and grasped the girl’s slim fingers.
Marion gazed from one to the other in eager delight.
“Oh, I am so happy!” she murmured over and over, “and I am going home to-morrow, so you will not have to see me here again, Adele. I know it must have been a shock to you to see me in a hospital.”
The two girls chatted together, while Archie Ray looked on. He was a tall, handsome young man, with dark, pleading eyes, and possessed a charmingly aristocratic manner.
He had been deeply in love with Marion before he went abroad, and now, when he saw her again, all the old tenderness came back to him, and he longed almost uncontrollably to press her to his bosom.
But if Marion read his thoughts, she did not show it by so much as a glance. There was an open cordiality in her manner that baffled him completely.
Suddenly Adele Ray’s face grew clouded in the midst of their talking. It was evident to Marion that she was thinking of something unpleasant.
“Oh, Marion, dear, I want you to help us,” she said, slowly. “We have a terrible secret for your ears, but it has to be told, and the sooner the better. We want you to do us a favor, my brother and I, and, oh, Marion, dear, do give us your sympathy!”
She looked so distressed that Marion’s cheeks grew pale, but she took Miss Ray’s hand and held it tightly.