nted me to trust you."

"And do you?" asked Ben with ardor.

"Yes, perfectly. I have to, you know." She tucked back the rejected
letter in its hiding-place.

"And you're not going to hate me?"

"I should think not," returned the girl with the same simple gravity;
"not when you've done me the greatest kindness of my whole life!"

"I'm so glad I haven't named the plane yet," said Ben impulsively. "You
shall name it."

"There's no name good enough," she replied--"unless--unless we name it
for that carrier pigeon that was such a hero in the War. We might name
it _Cher Ami_."

"Good," declared Ben. "It is surely a homing bird."

"And such a _cher ami_ to me," added Geraldine fervently.

Ben wondered if this marvelous girl never smiled.

"You were going to tell me how the ogre was able to force you to marry
him," he said.

"Yes; I don't like to tell you. It is very sad, and he crushed me with
it." The girl's lips trembled for a silent moment, and Cupid alone knows
how Ben longed to kiss them, close to him as they were.

"He said that my father forged two checks, and that he only refrained
from prosecuting him because of me. He said my father had promised that
he should have me."

Ben scowled, and the dark eyes fixed upon him brightened with sudden
eagerness. "But that was a lie--about father giving me to him. I have
Daddy's letter here." She felt again inside her blouse. "You will have
to know everything--how my poor father was his own worst enemy and came
to rely for money on that impossible man."

She took out the letter and gave it to Ben and he read it in silence.

"Probably it was a lie also about the checks," he said when he had
finished.

"No, oh, no," she replied earnestly. "He showed me those. He said that
my father was held in affectionate remembrance at his clubs and among
his friends, and that he could ruin all that and hold him up to contempt
as a criminal, unless--unless I married him." Geraldine's bosom heaved
convulsively. "I have been wild with joy ever since you came," she
declared. "If I ever go to heaven I can't be happier than I was flying
up from that meadow where there seemed a curse even on the poor little
wild flowers but you can see how it is going to keep coming over me in
waves that perhaps I have done wrong. You see, Daddy tells me not to
consider him; but should I not guard his name in spite of that? That is
the question that will keep coming up to me. Nevertheless"--she made