of my
own without adding any to his."

"Were you afraid he would not answer it?"

She lifted her head and tightened her fingers about his own, her wet
eyes looking into his.

"I was afraid of myself. I have never known my own mind and I don't know
it now. I have played fast and loose with everybody--I can't bind up a
broken arm and then break it again."

"Wouldn't it be better to try?" he said softly.

"No, I don't think so."

St. George released her hand and settled back in his chair; his face
grew grave. What manner of woman was this, and how could he reach the
inner kernel of her heart? Again he raised his head and leaning forward
took both her hands between his own.

"I am going to tell you a story, Kate--one you have never heard--not
all of it. When I was about your age--a little older perhaps, I gave
my heart to a woman who had known me from a boy; with whom I had played
when she was a child. I'm not going into the whole story, such things
are always sad; nor will I tell you anything of the beginning of the
three happy months of our betrothal nor of what caused our separation.
I shall only tell you of the cruelty of the end. There was a
misunderstanding--a quarrel--I begging her forgiveness on my knees. All
the time her heart was breaking. One little word from her would have
healed everything. Some years after that she married and her life still
goes on. I am what you see."

Kate looked at him with swimming eyes. She dimly remembered that she
had heard that her uncle had had a love affair in his youth and that his
sweetheart had jilted him for a richer man, but she had never known that
he had suffered so bitterly over it. Her heart went out to him all the
more.

"Will you tell me who it was?" She had no right to ask; but she might
comfort him the better if she knew.

"Harry's mother."

Kate dropped his hands and drew back in her seat.

"You--loved--Mrs.--Rutter--and she--refused you for--Oh!--what a cruel
thing to do! And what a fool she was. Now I know why you have been so
good to Harry. Oh, you poor, dear Uncle George. Oh, to think that you
of all men! Is there any one whose heart is not bruised and broken?" she
added in a helpless tone.

"Plenty of them, Kate--especially those who have been willing to stoop
a little and so triumph. Harry has waited three years for some word from
you; he has not asked for it, for he believes you have forgotten him;
and then he was too much of a man to encroach