In reply Marion wrote the briefest note:—
“It will be the best thing in the world for Marion,” replied the voice of Marion’s mother.
“There is no best thing in the world for Marion,” Marion told herself wearily, rising from the back parlor sofa, where she had thrown herself to be alone, and stepping softly across the room to the door.
To be alone in the dark was the best thing in the world for her; to be alone in the dark forever. For something had happened to her that had never happened to any girl before. With a light tread she went up stairs: she would not have her mother know that she had overheard the remark made to her father—her mother could not know all, only herself and Don Mackenzie knew her cruel secret; he would never tell, not even Roger, and she could sooner die than let the words pass her lips to any human creature. Girls had gone through terrible things before; but no girl ever had gone through this; no girl could, unless she were like herself, and no girl was like herself, so impetuous, so headlong, so frank that frankness became a sin.
In her own chamber she found the darkness and solitude she craved; the darkness and solitude she thought she would crave forever. The voices in the front parlor went on low and steadily, planning a best thing for Marion for whom no best was possible.
“Yes, it will certainly be a good thing,” her father answered in a relieved tone; “she hasn’t been herself since Donald Mackenzie went away.”
“I was afraid when he came,” was the low uttered response.
“Mothers are always afraid,” returned the father, who had urged his coming.
“But I was specially afraid; Don is so attractive, so unconscious of himself, and I know Marion well enough to know that she would make an ideal of him—”
“It may be nonsense, but it is true; it has proved true. Marion is imaginative, as I was at her age: I know how I idealized _you_—”
“And the reality of me broke your heart,” he said, with a light, fond laugh.
“Yes. Sometimes it did. But I lived through it and learned that you were human, and deliciously human, and, if you will allow me to say so, a great improvement on my girlish ideal.”
“At any rate, I was not afraid to let you try,” he answered; “but Don has gone without giving her the trial. I suspect he saw it and went.”