had broken your confounded arm--I beg your pardon!--your arm, and
had been taken in and tended by good Samaritans, and nursed and treated
like a prince for weeks, and had been made to feel happier than you've
been for--for oh, years, would you like to go away with just a 'Oh,
thanks; awfully obliged; very kind of you'? Wouldn't you want to make a
more solid acknowledgment? Come, be fair and just--if a woman can be
fair and just!--and admit that I'm not such a criminal, after all!"

She looked down at him thoughtfully, then turned her eyes seaward again.

"What do you want me to say?" she asked.

"Oh, well; I see that you won't change your mind about these things, so
perhaps I'd better be content if you'll say: 'I forgive you.'"

A smile flitted across her face as she looked down at him again, but it
was rather a sad little smile.

"I--I forgive you!" she said.

He raised his cap, and took her hand, and, before she suspected what he
was going to do, he put his lips to it.

Her face grew crimson, then pale almost to whiteness. It was the first
time a man's lips had touched her virgin hand, and----A tremor ran
through her, her eyes grew misty, as she looked at him with a
half-pained, half-fearful expression. Then she turned her head away, and
so quickly that he saw neither the change of color nor the expression in
her eyes.

"I feel like a miscreant who had received an unexpected pardon," he said
lightly, and yet with a touch of gravity in his voice, "and, like the
miscreant, I at once proceed to take advantage of the lenity of my
judge."

She turned her eyes to him questioningly; there was still a
half-puzzled, half-timid expression in them.

"I want to be rewarded--as well as pardoned--rewarded for my noble
sacrifice of the desire to bestow a piece of jewelry upon you."

"Rewarded?" she faltered.

He nodded.

"Yes. After the awful rebuke and scolding you have administered, you
cannot refuse to accept some token of my--some acknowledgment of my
gratitude, Miss Nell. See here----"

He felt in his waistcoat pocket, then in those of his coat, and at last
brought out a well-worn silver pencil case.

"I want you to be gracious enough to accept this," he said. "Before you
refuse with haughty displeasure and lively scorn, be good enough to
examine it. It is worth, I should say--shall I say five shillings? That,
I should imagine, is its utmost value. But, on the other hand, it is a
useful article, and I display