alued in this world."

"What have I destroyed?" she asked him.

"Your own good name; the respect that was your due from all men."

"Yet if I retain your own?"

"What is that worth?" he asked almost resentfully.

"Perhaps more than all the rest." She took a step forward and set her
hand upon his arm. There was no mistaking now her smile. It was all
tenderness, and her eyes were shining. "Ned, there is only one thing to
be done."

He looked down at her who was only a little less tall than himself, and
the colour faded from his own face now.

"You haven't understood me after all," he said. "I was afraid you would
not. I have no clear gift of words, and if I had, I am trying to say
something that would overtax any gift."

"On the contrary, Ned, I understand you perfectly. I don't think I have
ever understood you until now. Certainly never until now could I be sure
of what I hoped."

"Of what you hoped?" His voice sank as if in awe. "What?" he asked.

She looked away, and her persisting, yet ever-changing smile grew
slightly arch.

"You do not then intend to ask me to marry you?" she said.

"How could I?" It was an explosion almost of anger. "You yourself
suggested that it would be an insult; and so it would. It is to take
advantage of the position into which your foolish generosity has
betrayed you. Oh!" he clenched his fists and shook them a moment at his
sides.

"Very well," she said. "In that case I must ask you to marry me."

"You?" He was thunderstruck.

"What alternative do you leave me? You say that I have destroyed my good
name. You must provide me with a new one. At all costs I must become an
honest woman. Isn't that the phrase?"

"Don't!" he cried, and pain quivered in his voice. "Don't jest upon it."

"My dear," she said, and now she held out both hands to him, "why
trouble yourself with things of no account, when the only thing that
matters to us is within our grasp? We love each other, and--"

Her glance fell away, her lip trembled, and her smile at last took
flight. He caught her hands, holding them in a grip that hurt her; he
bent his head, and his eyes sought her own, but sought in vain.

"Have you considered--" he was beginning, when she interrupted him. Her
face flushed upward, surrendering to that questing glance of his, and
its expression was now between tears and laughter.

"You will be for ever considering, Ned. You consider too much, where the
issues are plain and simple. For