remain there, with her, another moment. Yet I remained.

"So you think this is our parting," she said. "I do not."

"Don't you? I fear you are wrong."

"I am not wrong. You will not go away, Mr.--Bennett. At least, you will
not until you go where my father sends you. You will accept his offer, I
think."

"You are mistaken."

"No. I think I am not mistaken. I think you will accept it,
because--because I ask you to."

"I cannot, Miss Colton."

"And your reason?"

"That I cannot tell anyone."

"But you told my father."

I was stricken dumb again.

She went on, speaking hurriedly, and not raising her eyes.

"You told my father," she repeated, "and he told me."

"He told you!" I cried.

"Yes, he told me. I--I am not sure that he was greatly surprised. He
thought it honorable of you and he was very glad you did tell him, but I
think he was not surprised."

The oaks and the pines and the huckleberry bushes were dancing great
giddy-go-rounds, a reflection of the whirlpool in my brain. Out of the
maelstrom I managed to speak somehow.

"He was not surprised!" I repeated. "He was not--not--What do you mean?"

She did not answer. She drew away from me a step, but I followed her.

"Why wasn't he surprised?" I asked again.

"Because--because--Oh, I don't know! What have I been saying! I--Please
don't ask me!"

"But why wasn't he surprised?"

"Because--because--" she hesitated. Then suddenly she looked up into my
face, her wonderful eyes alight. "Because," she said, "I had told him
myself, sir."

I seized her hands.

"YOU had told him? You had told him that I--I--"

"No," with a swift shake of the head, "not you. I--I did not know
that--then. I told him that I--"

But I did not wait to hear any more.

Some time after that--I do not know how long after and it makes no
difference anyway--I began to remember some resolutions I had made,
resolves to be self-sacrificing and all that sort of thing.

"But, my dear," I faltered, "I am insane! I am stark crazy! How can I
think of such a thing! Your mother--what will she say?"

She looked up at me; looking up was not as difficult now, and, besides,
she did not have to look far. She looked up and smiled.

"I think Mother is more reconciled," she said. "Since she learned who
you were she seems to feel better about it."

I shook my head, ruefully. "Yet she referred to me as a 'nobody' only
this morning," I observed.

"Yes, but that was before she knew