his forage cap and was pleasant and
kind. And he and Dr. Benton spoke to each other until the bugles
sounded for the regiment to mount."

She flung her slender arm out in a tragic gesture toward the
horizon. "The world is not wide enough to hide in," she said in a
heart-breaking voice. "I thought it was--but there is no
shelter--no place--no place in all the earth!"

"Letty," he said slowly, "if your Dr. Benton is the man I think he
is--and I once knew him well enough to judge--he is the only man on
earth fit to hear the confession you have made this day to me."

She looked at him, bewildered.

"I advise you to love him and marry him. Tell him about yourself
if you choose; or don't tell him. There is a vast amount of
nonsense talked about the moral necessity of turning one's self
inside out the moment one comes to marry. Let me tell you, few men
can do it; and their fiancees survive the shock. So, few men are
asses enough to try it. As for women, few have any confessions to
make. A few have. You are one."

"Yes," she whispered.

"But I wouldn't if I were you. If ever any man or woman took the
chance of salvation and made the most of it, that person is you!
And I'm going to tell you that I wouldn't hesitate to marry you if
I loved you."

"W-what!"

He laughed. "Not one second! It's a good partnership for any
plan. Don't be afraid that you can't meet men on their own level.
You're above most of us now; and you're mounting steadily. There,
that's my opinion of you--that you're a good woman, and a charming
one; and Benton is devilish lucky to get you. . . . Come here,
Letty."

She went to him as though dazed; and he took both her hands in his.

"Don't you know," he said, "that I have seen you, day after day,
intimately associated with the woman I love? Can you understand
now that I am telling the truth when I say, let the past bury its
ghosts; and go on living as you have lived from the moment that
your chance came to live nobly. I know what you have made of
yourself. I know what the chances were against you. You are a
better woman to-day than many who will die untempted. And you
shall not doubt it, Letty. What a soul is born into is often fine
and noble; what a soul makes of itself is beyond all praise.

"Choose your own way; tell him or not; but if you love him, give
yourself to him. Whether or not you tell him, he will want you--as
I would--as any man would. . . . Now you must smil