nds and drew her close. He
looked straight into her dark-blue eyes. They were shadowing with the
old wistful light, but they were as clear as the limpid water of the
spring. They were earnest, solemn in unutterable love and faith and
abnegation. Venters shivered. He knew he was looking into her soul.
He knew she could not lie in that moment; but that she might tell the
truth, looking at him with those eyes, almost killed his belief in
purity.

"What are--what were you to--to Oldring?" he panted, fiercely.

"I am his daughter," she replied, instantly.

Venters slowly let go of her. There was a violent break in the force of
his feeling--then creeping blankness.

"What--was it--you said?" he asked, in a kind of dull wonder.

"I am his daughter."

"Oldring's daughter?" queried Venters, with life gathering in his voice.

"Yes."

With a passionately awakening start he grasped her hands and drew her
close.

"All the time--you've been Oldring's daughter?"

"Yes, of course all the time--always."

"But Bess, you told me--you let me think--I made out you were--a--so--so
ashamed."

"It is my shame," she said, with voice deep and full, and now the
scarlet fired her cheek. "I told you--I'm nothing--nameless--just Bess,
Oldring's girl!"

"I know--I remember. But I never thought--" he went on, hurriedly,
huskily. "That time--when you lay dying--you prayed--you--somehow I got
the idea you were bad."

"Bad?" she asked, with a little laugh.

She looked up with a faint smile of bewilderment and the absolute
unconsciousness of a child. Venters gasped in the gathering might of the
truth. She did not understand his meaning.

"Bess! Bess!" He clasped her in his arms, hiding her eyes against his
breast. She must not see his face in that moment. And he held her while
he looked out across the valley. In his dim and blinded sight, in
the blur of golden light and moving mist, he saw Oldring. She was the
rustler's nameless daughter. Oldring had loved her. He had so guarded
her, so kept her from women and men and knowledge of life that her mind
was as a child's. That was part of the secret--part of the mystery.
That was the wonderful truth. Not only was she not bad, but good, pure,
innocent above all innocence in the world--the innocence of lonely
girlhood.

He saw Oldring's magnificent eyes, inquisitive, searching, softening. He
saw them flare in amaze, in gladness, with love, then suddenly strain in
terrible effort of will.