Marie at once. Donaldson left them
together. A little while later he was allowed to come up again.

"I feel like an unfaithful knight," he said, as he entered. "I deserve
to be dismissed without a word."

"Because you slept? It was not your fault. I fear I have left you
little time for rest."

"Why did n't you tell them to break down the doors--to _get_ me!"

Her face clouded for a moment.

She saw how chagrined he still felt.

"Don't blame yourself," she pleaded. "It's all over anyway and you 've
done everything possible. You 've been very thoughtful."

"I was a fool to leave you here. I should have stayed."

"That was impossible."

Donaldson marveled that she could pass off the whole episode so
generously. He refrained from questioning her further as to what had
happened. It was unnecessary, for he knew well enough.

"Let us choose a pleasanter subject," she said. "Tell me how you
became a great hero."

"A sorry hero," he answered, not understanding what she meant.

"No. No. It was fine! It was fine!"

He was bewildered.

"You don't mean to say you have n't seen the papers--but then, of
course, you have n't, if you were asleep all day Sunday. Please bring
me that pile in the corner."

He handed them to her and she unfolded the first page of the uppermost
paper. He found himself confronting a picture of himself as he had
stood, the centre of an admiring crowd, in front of the big machine
which had so nearly killed Bobby.

He shared the first page with the latest guesses concerning the
Riverside robberies.

"Well," he stammered, "I 'd forgotten all about that!"

"Forgotten such an act! You don't half realize what a hero you are.
Listen to the headlines, 'Heroic Rescue,' 'Young Lawyer Gives
Remarkable Exhibition of Nerve,' 'The Name of Lawyer Donaldson
Mentioned for Carnegie Medal,' 'Bravest Deed of the Year,' 'Faced Death
Unflinchingly.'"

And the pitiful feature of it was that he must sit and listen to this
undeserved praise from her lips. That, knowing deep in his heart his
own unworthiness, he must face her and see her respond to those things
as though he really had been worthy. He, who had done the act under
oath, was receiving the reward of a man who would have done it with no
false stimulus. He, who had been unconsciously braced to it by the
fact that he had so little to lose, was receiving the praise due only a
man who risks all the happiness of a long life. He had f