"I do not call ladies by their Christian names, when I have known them only a few days," said David.

"Not when you are going to marry them?"

"I have not been going to marry them, before," replied David.

"Oh, don't be tiresome, Cousin David! Are you determined to accentuate our unusual circumstances?"

David's clear eyes met hers, and held them.

"I think they require accentuating," he said, slowly.

Diana's eyes fell before his. She felt reproved. She realised that in the reaction of her immense relief, she was taking the whole thing too lightly.

"Cousin David," she said, humbly, "indeed I do realise the greatness of this that you are doing for me. It means so much; and yet it means so little. And just because it means so little, and never can mean more, it was difficult to you to feel it right to do it. Is not that so? Do you know, I think it would help me so much, if you would tell me exactly what seemed to you doubtful; and exactly what it was which dispelled that doubt."

"My chief difficulty," replied David, speaking very slowly, without looking at Diana—"my chief difficulty was: that I could not consider it right, in the sight of God, to enter into matrimony for reasons other than those for which matrimony was ordained; and to do so, knowing that each distinctly understood that there was never to be any question of fulfilling any of the ordinary conditions and obligations of that sacred tie."

David paused.

"In fact," he said, after a few moments of deliberation, "we proposed marrying each other for the sake of other people."

"Yes," cried Diana, eagerly; "your savages, and my tenantry. We wrong no one; we benefit many. Therefore—it must be right."

"Not so," resumed David, gently. "We are never justified in doing wrong in order that good may result. No amount of after good can justify one wrong or crooked action. It seemed to me that, according to the revealed mind and will of God, the only admissible considerations in marriage were those affecting the man and the woman, themselves; that to wed one another, entirely for the sake of benefiting other people, would make of that sacred act an impious unreality, and could not be done by those seeking to live in accordance with the Divine Will."

Again David paused.

"Well?" breathed Diana, rather wide-eyed and anxious. This undoubted impediment to her wishes, sounded insuperable.

David heard the trepidation in her voice, and smiled at her, reassuringly.