ainst your better nature? I know that you love me as well and as truly
as I love you yourself. I long to see you with just as great a longing.
You are mine--mine, my own--and being mine, you must tell me the truth.

"I forgive you, forgive you everything. But I cannot understand what
Flockart means by saying that I have spoken of you. I have not seen the
man, nor do I wish to see him. Gabrielle, do not trust him. He is your
enemy, as he is mine. He has lied to you. As grim circumstance has
forced you to treat me cruelly, let us hope that smiling fortune will be
ours at last. The world is very small. I have just met my old friend
Edgar Hamilton, who was at college with me, and who, I find, is
secretary to some wealthy foreigner, a certain Baron de Hetzendorf. I
have not seen him for years, and yet he turns up here, merry and
prosperous, after struggling for a long time with adverse circumstances.

"But, Gabrielle, your letter has puzzled and alarmed me. The more I
think of it, the more mystifying it all becomes. I must see you, and you
must tell me the truth--the whole truth. We love each other, dear heart,
and no one shall force you to lie again to me as you did in that letter
you wrote from Glencardine. You wish to see me, darling. You shall--and
you shall tell me the truth. My dear love, _au revoir_--until we meet,
which I hope may be almost as soon as you receive this letter.--My love,
my sweetheart, I am your own WALTER."

She sat staring at the letter. He demanded an explanation. He intended
to come there and demand it! And the explanation was one which she dared
not give. Rather that she took her own life than tell him the ghastly
circumstances.

He had met an old chum named Hamilton. Was this the Mr. Hamilton who had
snatched her from that deadly peril? The name of Hetzendorf sounded to
be Austrian or German. How strange if Mr. Hamilton her rescuer were the
same man who had been years ago her lover's college friend!

She passed her white hand across her brow, trying to collect her senses.

She had longed--ah, with such an intense longing!--for a response to
that letter of hers, and here at last it had come. But what a response!
He intended her to make confession. He demanded to know the actual
truth. What could she do? How should she act?

Holding the letter in her hand, she glanced around the little room in
utter despair.

He loved her. His words of reassurance brought her great comfort. But he
wished to