thers besides myself."

"Does Mr. Converse know that you are going away?"

"I shall tell him to-night before I leave town."

"He will not allow you to do."

"Yes--he will," the young man returned, quietly.

There was a long silence.

"Coming here--following you--it was a mad thing for me to do," said the
girl, still striving to find explanation for her act. "But I have had so
much trouble in my own life--I am sorry for others who are in trouble. I
want to tell you that I am sorry."

"I understand," he repeated.

Another period of silence followed.

"That is all," said the girl. "I only wanted to tell you what a grand
battle you won to-day--and then I saw your face there in the hall and
I knew that you did not want praise--you wanted somebody to say to you,
'I'm sorry.'" She dwelt upon the word which expressed her sympathy,
putting all her heart into her voice. "And now I'll be going," she said,
"and I hope you understand and will forgive me."

Farr had been sitting with head against the trunk of the tree. When he
had started to rise she requested him to remain seated. Now he stood up
so quickly that she gasped. She was plainly still less at ease when he
stood and came close to her.

"Wait a moment. You think that I am a very strange sort of man, do you
not?"

She was silent.

"You need not answer--it doesn't need answer. You naturally must think
that. You met me when I was a vagrant. You have seen me selling ice from
a cart-tail. But--I will be very frank, for this is a time which demands
frankness--you have seen me in other circumstances which have been a
bit more creditable. You do not know who I am or what to make of me. But
with all your heart and soul you know that I love you," he declared, his
tones low and tense and thrilling. "That love has needed no words. It
has been strange love-making. Wait! This isn't going to be what you
think. If I were simply going to say I love you I would have said it to
you long ago--I am not a coward--and I had seen the one mate of all the
world; I knew it when I saw you in the dust of the long highway. And
after you went on I picked a rose beside the way, and the ashes of that
rose are in my pocket now. I called you the little sister of the rose
and plodded along after you, playing with a dream. And I threw the rose
away after I saw you in the woods with your lover--and understood. But I
went back and hunted on my knees for your sister. I didn't intend to say
any of