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278 he wrote to you several times. I have told him that you have promised me, but I leave you freedom of choice. Which of us will you marry, Phillippa? ”

My dearie stood straight up and the trembling left her. She stepped back, and I could see her face, white as the dead, but calm and resolved.

“I have promised to marry you, Mark, and I will keep my word,” she said.

The color came back to Isabella Clark’s face; but Mark’s did not change.

“Phillippa,” said Owen, and the pain in his voice made my old heart ache bitterer than ever, “have you ceased to love me?”

My dearie would have been more than human, if she could have resisted the pleading in his tone. She said no word, but just looked at him for a moment. We all saw the look; her whole soul, full of love for Owen, showed out in it. Then she turned and stood by Mark.

Owen said never a word. He went as white as death, and started for the door. But again Mark Foster put himself in the way.

“Wait,” he said. “She has made her choice, as I knew she would; but I have yet to make mine. And I choose to marry no woman whose love belongs to another living man. Phillippa, I thought Owen Blair was dead, and I believed that, when you were my wife, I could win your love. But I love you too