ere wondering how to make it easy
for you--whether I could get rid of myself without scandal."

She had been sure that he must have repented long ago, and that it would
hurt him dreadfully to have her find out the thing he had done, but she
had not dreamed that his self-abasement would be so complete. She put
her arms around him as he held her, and pressed his head against her
neck--the dear, smooth black head which she loved better than ever in
this rush of pardoning pity.

"Dearest!" she whispered. "Never, never think or speak of such a dreadful
way out! Of course it was horribly wrong, and of course it was a great
shock to me, but you might have known from my doing what I could to help
that I didn't hate you. I said to myself there must be some excuse--some
_big_ excuse. And now, if only you wouldn't mind telling me about it from
the beginning, I believe it would be the best way for us both. Then I
might understand."

"You are God's own angel, Anita!" he said in a choked voice. "You don't
know how I've learned to love you, better than anything in this world or
the next--if there is a next. I knew you were a saint, but I didn't know
that saints forgave men like me.... Shall I really tell you from the
beginning? You'll listen--and bear it? It's a long story."

Annesley did not see why the story of his buying the historic stolen
diamond and giving it to her should be so very long, even with its
explanations; but she did not say this.

"I don't care how long it is," she told him. "But you will be tired--down
on your knees----"

"I couldn't tell my story to you in any way except on my knees," he
answered. And the new humility of the man she had loved half fearfully
for his daring, his defiant way of facing life, almost hurt, as his
sudden passion had startled the girl.

"I hardly know how to begin," he said. "Perhaps it had better be with my
father and mother, because it was the tragedy of their lives that shaped
mine." He was silent for a moment, as if thinking. Then he drew a long
breath, as a man does when he is ready to take a plunge into deep water.

"My mother was a Russian. Her people were noble, but that didn't keep
them from going to Siberia. She was brought to America by a man and woman
who'd been servants in her family. She was very young, only fifteen. Her
name was Michaela. I'm named after her--Michael. The three had only money
enough to be allowed to land as immigrants, and to get out west--though
h