"I will write that I cannot come. I could not travel to-day; I have not slept at all."
"You look so. But you are very foolish. Why should he not speak to me first?"
"It was your speaking to him first. What must he think of me! O, mother, mother, how could you?"
The hopeless cry went to her mother's heart.
"Marjorie, I believe the Lord allows us to be self-willed. I have not slept either; but I have sat up by the fire. Your father used to say that we would not make haste if we trusted, and I have learned that it is so. All I have done is to break your heart."
"Not quite that, poor mother. But I shall never write to Hollis again."
Mrs. West turned away and set the candle on the bureau. "But I can," she said to herself.
"Come down-stairs where it is warm, and I'll make you a cup of coffee.
I'm afraid you have caught your death of cold."
"I am cold," confessed Marjorie, rising with a weak motion.
Her new gray travelling dress was thrown over a chair, her small trunk was packed, even her gloves were laid out on the bureau beside her pocket-book.