quil,
even judicially austere. She prepared a surprise for him, now,
calculated to put a heavy strain upon those disinterested protestations
of his; and thus she delivered it, burning it away word by word as the
fuse burns down to a bombshell, and watching to see how far the explosion
would lift him:

"Listen--and do not doubt me, for I shall speak the exact truth. Howard
Tracy, I am no more an earl's child than you are!"

To her joy--and secret surprise, also--it never phased him. He was
ready, this time, and saw his chance. He cried out with enthusiasm,
"Thank heaven for that!" and gathered her to his arms.

To express her happiness was almost beyond her gift of speech.

"You make me the proudest girl in all the earth," she said, with her head
pillowed on his shoulder. "I thought it only natural that you should be
dazzled by the title--maybe even unconsciously, you being English--and
that you might be deceiving yourself in thinking you loved only me, and
find you didn't love me when the deception was swept away; so it makes me
proud that the revelation stands for nothing and that you do love just
me, only me--oh, prouder than any words can tell!"

"It is only you, sweetheart, I never gave one envying glance toward your
father's earldom. That is utterly true, dear Gwendolen."

"There--you mustn't call me that. I hate that false name. I told you it
wasn't mine. My name is Sally Sellers--or Sarah, if you like. From this
time I banish dreams, visions, imaginings, and will no more of them.
I am going to be myself--my genuine self, my honest self, my natural
self, clear and clean of sham and folly and fraud, and worthy of you.
There is no grain of social inequality between us; I, like you, am poor;
I, like you, am without position or distinction; you are a struggling
artist, I am that, too, in my humbler way. Our bread is honest bread,
we work for our living. Hand in hand we will walk hence to the grave,
helping each other in all ways, living for each other, being and
remaining one in heart and purpose, one in hope and aspiration,
inseparable to the end. And though our place is low, judged by the
world's eye, we will make it as high as the highest in the great
essentials of honest work for what we eat and wear, and conduct above
reproach. We live in a land, let us be thankful, where this is
all-sufficient, and no man is better than his neighbor by the grace
of God, but only by his own merit."

Tracy tr