h
easier. And then, might she not be wrong? Oh, if he would only tell
her she was mistaken! She struggled for some words by which she might
avoid telling him the truth, but she was a country-bred girl, all
unused to the small equivocations of social usage, and the
uncompromising integrity of her nature forbade trifling.

"Dr. Allen," she faltered at last, "I--perhaps I have judged you
harshly. Please do not ask me the reason. I would rather not talk
about it."

"But I do ask you," said Gilbert determinedly. "Is it quite fair to
condemn a man unheard?"

"I may have accused you wrongly," she said, the necessity of the case
driving her again to speech, "but I--we all"--she plucked a feathery
spray of the long-stemmed water-grass and examined it
minutely--"everybody thought you so good and kind--and I learned
something--accidentally--that disappointed me."

She glanced up with a mute appeal; but his looks were uncompromising.
"Well?" he asked quietly.

She looked up and down the shadowy ravine as if seeking help. Why not
tell him? There could be no harm to Arabella. He would know soon,
anyway, and she need not mention the wedding, and perhaps he might
vindicate himself. So, with her eyes on the golden-brown pool at her
feet, she told him the story, simply and sorrowfully, and as gently as
possible, of Miss Arabella's years of patient waiting, of the blue silk
gown laid away so long, of all Martin had suffered from poverty and
sickness, unhelped when he needed help so badly; and then of the sequel
of the story which he himself had told.

She looked at him when she had ended, and Gilbert could not help seeing
that the telling of it had hurt her almost as much as it had hurt him.
And how it had stung him! Martin starving in a mining camp while he
spent his money on roses and theater tickets for Rosalie Lane! Martin,
sick, poor, and struggling to make a home for the woman he loved, while
he--the man he had made--spent all upon his own pleasures and
ambitions! He was aghast at the far-reaching power of his fault. He
had selfishly neglected a man away off in the Klondyke, and had hurt a
frail little woman at his door, whom every instinct of his manhood
called upon him to protect.

His sorrowful-eyed accuser was looking at him, in the eager hope that
he might deny the charge. But he did not attempt the smallest
palliation. He scorned to make the paltry plea that, at the eleventh
hour, he had paid the debt