proved yourself to be to me, and be guilty of so mean an act as theft;
oh no, nothing save your own admission could ever make me believe that
of you. And you have all the sympathy of my heart, Dick; all my
sympathy; all my esteem; all--oh, the thought of what you have been
compelled to endure is terrible--terrible!"

And, to Leslie's unspeakable consternation, the girl suddenly buried her
face in her hands and sobbed as though her heart would break. The
expression of her whole-hearted sympathy and perfect faith in him
touched him profoundly.

"Don't cry, darling, please don't; I cannot bear it--and I am not worth
it," he protested. "I ought never to have told you. I was a selfish
brute to extort your sympathy by the miserable recital of my own
misfortunes; I have basely worked upon your feelings."

"You shall _not_ say it," she answered, laying her hand upon his mouth;
"I will not have you abuse yourself, you who have already suffered such
unspeakable cruelty at the hands of others. You are _not_ selfish; you
are _not_ base; you are nothing that is bad and everything that is good;
you are a very king among men! Oh, Dick," she continued, taking his
hand in hers, "do not think me forward or unmaidenly in speaking thus to
you, dear; I am not. But do you think I do not know what your feeling
is toward me; do you think I do not _know_ that you love me? You poor,
simple-hearted fellow, you are far too honest and straightforward ever
to be able to deceive a woman, especially in such a matter as that; you
may have thought that you were very successfully concealing your
feelings from me, but I have known the truth--oh, ever since we have
been on this island."

"It is true; God help me, it is true!" exclaimed Dick, smiting his
forehead. "But it is also true that I never intended you to know. For
what right have I, a disgraced and ruined man, to seek the love of any
woman? And if I may not seek her love in return, why should I tell her
that I love her?"

"You are looking at the matter with jaundiced eyes, Dick," answered
Flora, still retaining his hand in hers. "I cannot wonder that you feel
your humiliation cruelly; but the humiliation is really not yours; it is
that of those who so shamefully plotted to ruin you. You are guiltless
of this horrible charge--I am as sure of that as I am that I am a living
woman. Besides, who is to know that Richard Leslie is one and the same
man with him who stood in the dock cha