s knew you. I told him just enough to wrong you in his
eyes, and then could not tell him enough to right you again. Now do you
know why I want you to let me tell him all--while I can?"

It had taken him a long time to say the words; his articulation had grown
indistinct at times, and the excitement was wearing on him.

Once the door into the room where the child lay swung open noiselessly,
and he had turned his eyes in that direction; but the girl's head was
bowed on the arm of his chair, and she did not notice it.

"And then--there are other things," he continued. "He don't know you were
the boy Fannie spoke of in that letter; or that she gave you the plot of
this land; or, more--far more to me!--that you took care of her till she
died. All that must give him many a worried thought, 'Tana, that you never
counted on, for he liked you--and yet all along he has been made to think
wrong of you."

"I know," she assented. "He blamed me for--for a man being in my cabin
that night, and I--I wanted him to--think well of me; but I could not tell
him the truth, I was ashamed of it all my life. And the shame has got in
my blood till I can't change it. I want him to know, but I can't tell
him."

"You don't need to," said a voice back of her, and she arose to see
Overton standing in the door. "I did not mean to listen; but I stopped to
look at the child, and I heard. I hope you are not sorry," and he came
over to her with outstretched hand.

She could not speak at first. She had dreamed of so many ways in which she
would meet him--of what she would say to him; and now she stood before him
without a word.

"Don't be sorry, 'Tana," he said, and tightened his hand over her own. "I
honor you for what I heard just now. You were wrong not to tell me; I
might have saved you some troubles."

"I was ashamed--ashamed!" she said, and turned away.

"But it is not to me all this should be told," he said, more coldly. "Max
is the one to know; or, maybe, he does know."

"He knows a little--not much. Seldon and Haydon recognized--Holly. So the
family knew that, but no more."

It was so hard for her to talk to him there, where Harris looked from one
to the other expectantly.

And then the child slipped from the couch and came toddling into the light
and to the girl.

"Tana--bek-fas!" she lisped, imperatively. "Bek-fas."

"Yes, you shall have your breakfast very soon," promised the girl. "But
come and shake hands with these gentlemen