The quick, warm tears of joy came welling to her eyes as she silently
took his hand and led him out of the little garden and to where his
horse stood.

There, she leaning against his horse, her fingers slipping softly
through the big bay's mane, Jeffrey standing stiff and anxious before
her, with the glad morning and the high hills and all French Village
observing them with kindly eyes, these two faced their question.

But after all there was no question. For when Jeffrey had told all,
down to that moment in the dark road when he had found God in his
heart, Ruth, with that instinct of mothering tenderness that is born
in every woman, said:

"Poor boy, you have suffered too much!"

"What I suffered was that I made for myself," he said thickly. "Cynthe
Cardinal told me what a fool I was."

"What did Cynthe tell you?"

"She told me that you loved me."

"Did you need to be told that, Jeffrey?" said the girl very quietly.

"Yes, it seems so. I'd known your little white soul ever since you
were a baby. I knew that in all your life you'd never had a thought
that was not the best, the truest, the loyalest for me. I knew that
there was never a time when you wouldn't have given everything, even
life, for me. I knew it that day in the Bishop's house. I knew it
that morning when you came to me in the sugar cabin."

"Yes, I knew all that," he went on bitterly. "I knew you loved me, and
I knew what a love it was. I knew it. And yet that day--that day in
the courtroom, the only thing I could do was to call you liar!"

She put up her hands with an appeal to stop him, but he went on
doggedly.

"Yes, I did. That was all I could think of. I threw it at you like a
blow in the face. I saw you quiver and shrink, as though I had struck
you. And even that sight wasn't enough for me. I kept on saying it,
when I knew in my heart it wasn't so. I couldn't help but know it. I
knew you. But I kept on telling myself that you lied; kept on till
yesterday. I wasn't big enough. I wasn't man enough to see that you
were just facing something that was bigger than both of us--something
that was bigger and truer than words--that there was no way out for
you but to do what you did."

"Jeffrey, dear," the girl hurried to say, "you know that's a thing we
can't speak about--"

"Yes, we can, now. I know and I understand. You needn't say anything.
I _understand_."

"And I understand a lot more," he began again. "It took that little
French girl