l on
her knees at my feet. I tried to raise her; I entreated her to believe
that she was forgiven. She seized my hands, and held them over her
face--they were wet with her tears. "I am ashamed to look at you," she
said. "Oh, Bernard, what a wretch I have been!"

I never was so distressed in my life. I don't know what I should have
said, what I should have done, if my dear old dog had not helped me out
of it. He, too, ran up to me, with the loving jealousy of his race, and
tried to lick my hands, still fast in Stella's hold. His paws were
on her shoulder; he attempted to push himself between us. I think I
successfully assumed a tranquillity which I was far from really feeling.
"Come, come!" I said, "you mustn't make Traveler jealous." She let me
raise her. Ah, if she could have kissed _me_--but that was not to be
done; she kissed the dog's head, and then she spoke to me. I shall not
set down what she said in these pages. While I live, there is no fear of
my forgetting those words.

I led her back to her chair. The letter addressed to me by the Rector
of Belhaven still lay on the table, unread. It was of some importance
to Stella's complete enlightenment, as containing evidence that the
confession was genuine. But I hesitated, for her sake, to speak of it
just yet.

"Now you know that you have a friend to help and advise you--" I began.

"No," she interposed; "more than a friend; say a brother."

I said it. "You had something to ask of me," I resumed, "and you never
put the question."

She understood me.

"I meant to tell you," she said, "that I had written a letter of refusal
to Mr. Romayne's lawyers. I have left Ten Acres, never to return; and
I refuse to accept a farthing of Mr. Romayne's money. My mother--though
she knows that we have enough to live on--tells me I have acted with
inexcusable pride and folly. I wanted to ask if you blame me, Bernard,
as she does?"

I daresay I was inexcusably proud and foolish too. It was the second
time she had called me by my Christian name since the happy bygone time,
never to come again. Under whatever influence I acted, I respected and
admired her for that refusal, and I owned it in so many words. This
little encouragement seemed to relieve her. She was so much calmer that
I ventured to speak of the Rector's letter.

She wouldn't hear of it. "Oh, Bernard, have I not learned to trust you
yet? Put away those papers. There is only one thing I want to know. Who
gave them t