as trembling. Indeed,
his whole body was trembling, while he sought for self-control and to
collect his thoughts for what he had to say to that still figure awaiting
his words. When he looked up it was with an expression wholly new to
Jack. Its candor was not that of transparent mental processes in serene
philosophy or forensic display, but that of a man who was about to lay
bare things of the past which he had kept secret.

"Sir Chaps, I am going to give you my story, however weak and blameworthy
it makes me appear," he said. "Sir Chaps, you saw me in anger in the
Wingfield drawing-room, further baffling you with a mystery which must
have begun for you the night that you came to Little Rivers when we
exchanged a look in which I saw that you knew that I recognized you. I
tried to talk as if you were a welcome stranger, when I was holding in my
rancor. There was no other face in the world that I would not rather have
seen in this community than yours!

"How glad I was to hear that you were leaving by the morning train! How I
counted the days of your convalescence after you were wounded! How glad I
was at the news that you were to go as soon as you were well! With what a
revelry of suggestion I planned to speed your parting! How demoralized I
was when you announced that you were going to stay! How amazed at your
seriousness about ranching--but how distrustful! Yet what joy in your
companionship! At times I wanted to get my arms around you and hug you as
a scarred old grizzly bear would hug a cub. And, first and last, your
success with everybody here! Your cool hand in the duel! That iron in
your will which would triumph at any cost when you broke Nogales's arm!
For some reason you had chosen to stop, in the play period of youth, on
the way to the inheritance to overcome some obstacle that it pleased you
to overcome and to amuse yourself a while in Little Rivers--you with your
steadiness in a fight and your airy, smiling confidence in yourself!"

"I--I did not know that I was like that!" said Jack, in hurt, groping
surprise. "Was I truly?"

The Doge nodded.

"As I saw you," he said.

Jack looked at Mary, frankly and calmly.

"Was I truly?" he asked her.

"As I saw you!" she repeated, as an impersonal, honest witness.

"Then I must have been!" he said, with conviction. "But I hope that I
shall not be in the future." And he smiled at Mary wistfully. But her
gaze was bent on the ground.

"And you want it all--all