They had turned into a shady alley, where they were quite alone, and as Marielle spoke she raised her eyes, brimming with tears, to meet those of the man at her side.
“All you have to give me, Marielle? Why, you have it in your power to give me the greatest reward that was ever bestowed on medical man!” Then, tenderly taking her hand in his: “Won’t you give it me, my darling? It is yourself I want.”
Trembling all over, Marielle essayed to answer, but words would not come. Instead she pressed the hand that held her own, and looked up with a face like an April day, half smiles, half tears.
Magnus Duncan read her reply aright, and strained her to his heart.
“Ah!” said Marielle archly, a little later on, “you say it is your greatest reward, but”—gravely—“I had a far greater still—once.”
“I know all about it, my darling, and it only makes me feel myself doubly blessed in having won your love,” was Magnus Duncan’s tender reply, as he drew Marielle’s hand within his arm and they strolled slowly homewards.
“It was a very pretty wedding,” was the general remark about that which was solemnised at St. Jude’s the following June. The bride looked lovely in her shimmering white robes, followed by six of her pupils as bridesmaids; and the bridegroom looked so proud and happy.
No tears were shed, for Marielle had begged there might not be, since she was not going to be separated from her mother for long; and as everyone was pleased and happy, why should they weep?
“If ever I marry,” had been Marielle’s remark some years before, “I will not go crying to my husband; it would be such a poor compliment.”