otested. "The letter was to Rossland."

There was no responsive gladness in her eyes. "Better that it were true,
and all that _is_ true were false," she said in a quiet, hopeless
voice. "I would almost give my life to be no more than what those words
implied, dishonest, a spy, a criminal of a sort; almost any alternative
would I accept in place of what I actually am. Do you begin to
understand?"

"I am afraid--I can not." Even as he persisted in denial, the pain which
had grown like velvety dew in her eyes clutched at his heart, and he
felt dread of what lay behind it. "I understand--only--that I am glad
you are here, more glad than yesterday, or this morning, or an
hour ago."

She bowed her head, so that the bright light of day made a radiance of
rich color in her hair, and he saw the sudden tremble of the shining
lashes that lay against her cheeks; and then, quickly, she caught her
breath, and her hands grew steady in her lap.

"Would you mind--if I asked you first--to tell me _your_ story of John
Graham?" she spoke softly. "I know it, a little, but I think it would
make everything easier if I could hear it from you--now."

He stood up and looked down upon her where she sat, with the light
playing in her hair; and then he moved to the window, and back, and she
had not changed her position, but was waiting for him to speak. She
raised her eyes, and the question her lips had formed was glowing in
them as clearly as if she had voiced it again in words. A desire rose in
him to speak to her as he had never spoken to another human being, and
to reveal for her--and for her alone--the thing that had harbored
itself in his soul for many years. Looking up at him, waiting, partial
understanding softening her sweet face, a dusky glow in her eyes, she
was so beautiful that he cried out softly and then laughed in a strange
repressed sort of way as he half held out his arms toward her.

"I think I know how my father must have loved my mother," he said. "But
I can't make you feel it. I can't hope for that. She died when I was so
young that she remained only as a beautiful dream for me. But for my
father she _never_ died, and as I grew older she became more and more
alive for me, so that in our journeys we would talk about her as if she
were waiting for us back home and would welcome us when we returned. And
never could my father remain away from the place where she was buried
very long at a time. He called it _home_, that littl