her protectingly, she
gently pushed away.

"Don't--don't take me yet, dear--I should be crying in another
moment--I'm so--so _beaten_--and I want not to cry till I've told you,
oh, so many things! Sit again and let us talk calmly first. Now
why--_why_ did you pretend this wretched thing?"

He faced her proudly, with the big, honest, clumsy dignity of a rugged
man--and there was a loving quiet in his tones that touched her
ineffably.

"Poor Bernal had told me his--his _contretemps_. The rest is simple. He
is my brother. The last I remember of our mother is her straining me to
her poor breast and saying, 'Oh, take care of little Bernal!'" Tears
were glistening in his eyes.

"From the very freedom of the poor boy's talk about religious matters,
it is the more urgent that his conduct be irreproachable. I could not
bear that even you should think a shameful thing of him."

She looked at him with swimming eyes, yet held her tears in check
through the very excitement of this splendid new admiration for him.

"But that was foolish--quixotic--"

"You will never know, little woman, what a brother's love is. Don't you
remember years ago I told you that I would stand by Bernal, come what
might. Did you think that was idle boasting?"

"But you were willing to have me suspect _that_ of you!"

He spoke with a sad, sweet gentleness now, as one might speak who had
long suffered hurts in secret.

"Dearest--dear little woman--I already knew that I had been unable to
retain your love--God knows I tried--but in some way I had proved
unworthy of it. I had come to believe--painful and humiliating though
that belief was--that you could not think less of me--your words
to-night proved that I was right--you would have gone away, even without
this. But at least my poor brother might still seem good to you."

"Oh, you poor, foolish, foolish, man--And yet, Allan, nothing less than
this would have shown you truly to me. I can speak plainly now--indeed I
must, for once. Allan, you have ways--mannerisms--that are unfortunate.
They raised in me a conviction that you were not genuine--that you were
somehow false. Don't let it hurt now, dear, for see--this one little
unstudied, impetuous act of devotion, simple and instinctive with your
generous heart, has revealed your true self to me as nothing else could
have done. Oh, don't you see how you have given me at last what I had to
have, if we were to live on together--something in you to _hol