"I didn't intend that he should tell."

"He didn't," eagerly, "not your reasons. He said it was a--confidence,
and he couldn't break his word. But he knew that you were brave. That
the things the world is saying are all wrong. Oh, I ought to go down
on my knees."

Her face was white, her eyes deep wells of tears.

"It is I," he said, very low, "who should be on my knees--do you know
what it means to me to have you tell me this?"

"I wasn't sure that I ought to write. To some men I couldn't have
written--"

His face lighted. "When your note came--I can't tell you what it meant
to me. I shouldn't like to think of what this day would have been for
me if you had not written. Everybody is calling me--a coward. You
know that. You heard Witherspoon just now pitying me, not in words,
but his manner."

"Oh, Ralph," how easily she disposed of him. "Ralph crows, like
a--rooster."

They looked at each other and tried to laugh. But they were not
laughing in their hearts.

He lifted her hand and kissed it--then he stood well away from her,
anchoring himself again to the silken tassel. "Now that you know a