"I know ... but it's the truth--all the same."

She was fighting for something greater than life--happiness! And though
with each moment since she came into the room it seemed to be more
surely eluding her, she went on, hardly knowing what she said:

"I know you don't believe me--but it's true.... I never cared for--for
Mr. Digby ... but ... but I was jealous ... of Peg!" Her voice faltered
over the little name, and it was with an effort that she forced herself
to continue. "You seemed to like her ... better than me ... and--and ...
I was jealous...." She spoke the words again passionately, conscious of
their unconvincing sound, their parrot-like repetition.

Forrester came towards her till but a step divided them.

"You expect me to believe that?" he asked hoarsely. "When I've been
waiting all these weeks, all these months for you to give me one look
... one smallest hope ... when I've been a beggar at your feet, hoping
against hope that some day you'd throw me a smile...." He swung round
from her with a passionate gesture of disbelief.

She had pleaded to him in vain, and she knew it. She had humbled herself
unavailingly. The room swam giddily before her eyes as she looked at
Forrester. Such a man for a woman to love, and yet she, blind as she had
been, had not seen until too late, all that she was throwing away.

She made a little inarticulate sound of despair and Forrester turned.

He stepped past her and opened the door.

"I am leaving here early in the morning," he said. "I shall not trouble
you again. Good-bye."

Something seemed to snap in Faith's heart. She stumbled towards him and
would have fallen at his feet but for his upholding hand. She broke into
wild, incoherent words, clinging to him desperately.

"Don't leave me ... I can't bear it.... I love you. Forgive me. I've
nobody in all the world ... oh, forgive me ... forgive me...."

"Faith!" The Beggar Man spoke her name with a great cry. For a moment he
held her from him, looking into her face with eyes of passionate hope
and disbelief. Then he caught her to his heart.

She clung to him like a lost child that has suddenly found its home
again; the dread of the future without him found its reaction in a storm
of tearless sobbing.

"Don't leave me--oh, don't leave me," was all she could say again and
again.

He took her up in his arms and carried her over to the big chair by the
fire, as if she had been a child; he spoke to her gently, soot