.

"Didn't you know it?"

"I know you have been very--good--to me."

"You have known more than that," he said.

"No, good heavens, no! Angus--"

"I have only known it myself since that day in the rain," he
interrupted. "Before that, I thought I was only helping you, as I would
have helped any woman--or man, either. But then I knew it was something
else. And to-day when Godfrey French said he would not have our names
coupled together--"

"Oh!" the girl cried sharply.

"And that you would not think twice of a rough, uneducated man like
myself," he pursued. "I decided to find out to-night whether he was
right or wrong."

"He was wrong!" she cried. "That is--I mean--that you are not rough and
uneducated, and--"

"I am both," Angus admitted gravely. "I have worked hard since I was a
boy, and what education I have I have got for myself. In that he was
right. And so I find it very hard to tell you what I want to, as a woman
should be told, because words do not come to my tongue easily, and never
did. The thoughts I have had I have always kept to myself, for that, and
because there was no one who would understand even if I could have put
them into words. And this is all I can say, that I love you as a man
loves one woman in his lifetime, and I want you for my wife. Is it yes
or no, Faith?"

"But--Angus--I never thought of such a thing--not really, I mean. You
were always kind, helpful, but never like--like--"

"Never like a lover?"

"Well--no."

Angus laid his great hands on her shoulders. The ordinary grimness of
his face was lacking. It was replaced by something ineffably tender.
Slowly he drew her to him until they stood breast to breast.

"I can be like a lover, Faith," he said, "if you will have it so."

For a long moment Faith Winton's clear eyes looked into his, and then
went blank as she searched her own heart for an answer and found it.

"I will have it so--dear!" she said.

CHAPTER XXV

CROSS CURRENTS

Jean Mackay, rustling through the house with broom and duster after
breakfast, came on her brother reading what at first glance she took to
be a magazine. This gave her what was destined to be the first of a
string of surprises, for Angus never loafed around the house.

"Shoo! Get out of here!" she said. "You'll get all choked with dust. I
declare I don't know where all the dirt comes from."

In proof of her words she raised a cloud which made him cough. "Told you
so," she said. "Do