from my wife; the first secret I
shall have ever kept from her.'

'First, then, let me say, and this is what I know will rejoice you, that
I am not leaving home and country because of any crime I have committed;
not from any offence against God or man, or law. Thank God! I am free
from such. I have always tried to live uprightly . . . ' Here a burst
of pain overcame him, and with a dry sob he added: 'And that is what
makes the terrible unfairness of it all!'

The old man laid a kindly hand on his shoulder and kept it there for a
few moments.

'My poor boy! My poor boy!' was all he said. Harold shook himself as if
to dislodge the bitter thoughts. Mastering himself he went on:

'There was a lady with whom I was very much thrown in contact since we
were children. Her father was my father's friend. My friend too, God
knows; for almost with his dying breath he gave sanction to my marrying
his daughter, if it should ever be that she should care for me in that
way. But he wished me to wait, and, till she was old enough to choose,
to leave her free. For she is several years younger than I am; and I am
not very old yet--except in heart! All this, you understand, was said in
private to me; none other knew it. None knew of it even till this moment
when I tell you that such a thing has been.' He paused; the other said:

'Believe me that I value your confidence, beyond all words!' Harold felt
already the good effects of being able to speak of his pent-up trouble.
Already this freedom from the nightmare loneliness of his own thoughts
seemed to be freeing his very soul.

'I honestly kept to his wishes. Before God, I did! No man who loved a
woman, honoured her, worshipped her, could have been more scrupulously
careful as to leaving her free. What it was to me to so hold myself no
one knows; no one ever will know. For I loved her, do love her, with
every nerve and fibre of my heart. All our lives we had been friends;
and I believed we loved and trusted each other. But . . . but then there
came a day when I found by chance that a great trouble threatened her.
Not from anything wrong that she had done; but from something perhaps
foolish, harmlessly foolish except that she did not know . . . ' He
stopped suddenly, fearing he might have said overmuch of Stephen's side
of the affair. 'When I came to her aid, however, meaning the best, and
as single-minded as a man can be, she misunderstood my words, my meaning,
m