Marcia!
He opened the door.
"Don't come in. Mother's asleep."
Marcia stared at him in amazement. Then she stepped past him, and stood
on the threshold surveying her mother. Her pathetic look conveyed the
instinctive appeal of the young girl turning in the crisis of her life to
her natural friend, her natural comforter. And it remained unanswered. She
turned and beckoned to Coryston.
"Come with me--a moment." They went noiselessly down the staircase leading
from Lady Coryston's wing, into a room which had been their schoolroom as
children, on the ground floor. Marcia laid a hand on her brother's arm.
"Coryston--I was coming to speak to mother. I have broken off my
engagement."
"Thank the Lord!" cried Coryston, taken wholly aback. "Thank the Lord!"
He would have kissed her in his relief and enthusiasm. But Marcia stepped
back from him. Her pale face showed a passionate resentment.
"Don't speak about him, Corry! Don't say another word about him. You never
understood him, and I'm not going to discuss him with you. I couldn't bear
it. What's wrong with mother?"
"She's knocked over--by that girl, Enid Glenwilliam. She saw her this
morning.
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