my life. I have only pleased myself,
after all!"

"What gratitude did you owe me?"

"What gratitude? For what you did for my father."

"I have only seen your father once in my life--at your table at the
dance supper, that night."

"Listen. My father is a gentle old man with white hair and kind eyes.
You saw my uncle, that night; he has been as good to me as a father,
since I was seven years old, and he gave me his name by law and I lived
with him. My father came to see me once a year; I never came to see him.
He always told me everything was well with him; that his life was happy.
Once he lost the little he had left to him in the world, his only way of
making his living. He had no friends; he was hungry and desperate, and
he wandered. I was dancing and going about wearing jewels--only--I did
not know. All the time the brave heart wrote me happy letters. I should
have known, for there was one who did, and who saved him. When at last
I came to see my father, he told me. He had written of his idol before;
but it was not till I came that he told it all to me. Do you know what
I felt? While his daughter was dancing cotillions, a stranger had taken
his hand--and--" A sob rose in her throat and checked her utterance
for a moment; but she threw up her head and met his eyes proudly.
"Gratitude, Mr. Harkless!" she cried. "I am James Fisbee's daughter."

He fell back from the bench with a sharp exclamation, and stared at her
through the gray twilight. She went on hurriedly, again not looking at
him:

"When you showed me that you cared for me--when you told me that you
did--I--do you think I wanted to care for you? I wanted to do something
to show you that I could be ashamed of my vile neglect of him--something
to show you his daughter could be grateful. If I had loved you, what
I did would have been for that--and I could not have done it. And how
could I have shown my gratitude if I had done it for love? And it has
been such dear, happy work, the little I have done, that it seems, after
all, that I have done it for love of myself. But--but when you first
told me--" She broke off with a strange, fluttering, half inarticulate
little laugh that was half tears; and then resumed in another tone:
"When you told me you cared that night--that night we were here--how
could I be sure? It had been only two days, you see, and even if I could
have been sure of myself, why, I couldn't have told you. Oh! I had so
brazenly thrown myself a