nds. I could not help seeing that they were good
people, especially that delightful old man, the Judge. He looked
startlingly like my dear father. I saw how they all honored and loved you.
And then what you have done for me, and the way that you treated an
utterly defenceless stranger, were equal to years of mere acquaintance. I
feel that I know a great deal about you."

He smiled. "Thank you," he said, "but I have not forgotten that something
more is due you than that slight knowledge of me, and before I came out
here I went to the pastor of the church of which my mother is a member,
and which I have always attended and asked him to write me a letter. He is
so widely known that I felt it would be an introduction for me."

He laid an open letter in her lap, and, glancing down, she saw that it was
signed by the name of one of the best known pulpit orators in the land,
and that it spoke in highest terms of the young man whom it named as "my
well-loved friend."

"It is also your right to know that I have always tried to live a pure and
honorable life. I have never told any woman but you that I loved
her--except an elderly cousin with whom I thought I was in love when I was
nineteen. She cured me of it by laughing at me, and I have been
heart-whole ever since."

She raised her eyes from reading the letter.

"You have all these, and I have nothing." She spread out her hands
helplessly. "It must seem strange to you that I am in this situation. It
does to me. It is awful."

She put her hands over her eyes and shuddered.

"It is to save you from it all that I have come." He leaned over and spoke
tenderly, "Darling!"

"Oh, wait!" She caught her breath as if it hurt her, and put out her hand
to stop him, "Wait! You must not say any more until I have told you all
about it. Perhaps when I have told you, you will think about me as others
do, and I shall have to run from you."

"Can you not trust me?" he reproached her.

"Oh, yes, I can trust you, but you may no longer trust me, and that I
cannot bear."

"I promise you solemnly that I will believe every word you say."

"Ah, but you will think I do not know, and that it is your duty to give me
into the hands of my enemies."

"That I most solemnly vow I will never do," he said earnestly. "You need
not fear to tell me anything. But listen, tell me this one thing: in the
eyes of God, is there any reason, physical, mental, or spiritual, why you
should not become my wife?"