out like that Katherine in Shakespeare's play. But I know all the time
it isn't true. We have to conquer ourselves. There is no city of
refuge from our own temperaments."

He felt sure there was a way out from her fretted life for this
deep-breasted, supple daughter of the hills if she could only find it.
She had breathed an atmosphere that made for suspicion and harshness.
All her years she had been forced to fight to save herself from shame.
But Roy, as he looked at her, imaged another picture of Beulah
Rutherford. Little children clung to her knees and called her
"Mother." She bent over them tenderly, her face irradiated with love.
A man whose features would not come clear strode toward her and the
eyes she lifted to his were pools of light.

Beaudry drew a deep breath and looked away from her into the fire. "I
wish time would solve my problem as surely as it will yours," he said.

She looked at him eagerly, lips parted, but she would not in words
invite his confession.

The young man shaded his eyes with his hand as if to screen them from
the fire, but she noticed that the back of his hand hid them from her,
too. He found a difficulty in beginning. When at last he spoke, his
voice was rough with feeling.

"Of course, you'll despise me--you of all people. How could you help
it?"

Her body leaned toward him ever so slightly. Love lit her face like a
soft light.

"Shall I? How do you know?"

"It cuts so deep--goes to the bottom of things. If a fellow is wild or
even bad, he may redeem himself. But you can't make a man out of a
yellow cur. The stuff isn't there." The words came out jerkily as if
with some physical difficulty.

"If you mean about coming up to the park, I know about that," she said
gently. "Mr. Dingwell told father. I think it was splendid of you."

"No, that isn't it. I knew I was right in coming and that some day you
would understand." He dropped the hand from his face and looked
straight at her. "Dave didn't tell your father that I had to be
flogged into going, did he? He didn't tell him that I tried to dodge
out of it with excuses."

"Of course, you weren't anxious to throw up your own affairs and run
into danger for a man you had never met. Why should you be wild for
the chance. But you went."

"Oh, I went. I had to go. Ryan put it up to me so that there was no
escape," was his dogged, almost defiant, answer.

"I know better," the girl corrected quickly. "Yo