"

"That's very strange. That's just the reason I wanted to tell _you_
that I hadn't been honest--I never wrote the letters that _you_ got!
It was my room-mate, Annie Squires."

"So? That's funny, ain't it? Some folks has funny idees of jokes. I
reckon they thought this was a joke. It ain't."

"Your letters seemed like you seem now," she broke in. "It seems to me
you must have written every word."

"Ma'am----" said Sim Gage; and broke down.

"Yes, sir?"

"Them is the finest words I ever heard in my life! I ain't been much.
If I could only live up to them words, now----

"Besides," he went on, a rising happiness in his tones, "seems like you
and me was one just as honest as the other, and both meaning fair.
That makes me feel a heap easier. If it does you, you're welcome."

Blind as she was, Mary Warren knew now the gulf between this man's life
and hers. But his words were so kind. And she so much needed a friend.

"You're a forgiving man, Mr. Gage," said she.

"No, I ain't. I'm a awful man. When you learn more about me you'll
think I'm the worst man you ever seen."

"We'll have to wait," was all that Mary Warren could think to say. But
after a time she turned her face toward him once more.

"Do you know," said she, "I think you're a gentleman!"

"Oh, my Lord!" said Sim Gage, his eyes going every which way. "Oh, my
good Lord!"

"Well, it's true. Look--you haven't said a word or done a thing--you
haven't touched me--or laughed--or--or hinted--not once. That's being
a gentleman, in a time like this. This--this is a very hard place for
a woman."

"It ain't so easy fer a man! But I couldn't have done no other way,
could I?"

She made no answer. "Are there many other women in this valley, Mr.
Gage?" she asked after a time. "Who are they? What are they like?"

"Five, in twenty-two miles between my place and town, ma'am," he
answered, "when they're home. The nearedest one to us is about couple
miles, unless you cut through the fields."

"Who is she? What is she like?"

"That is Mis' Davidson, our school ma'am-- She's the only woman I seen
a'most all last summer, unlessen onct in a while a woman would come out
with some fishing party in a automobile. Most of them crosses up above
on the bridge and comes down the other side of the creek from us.
Seems to me sometimes women has always been just acrosst the creek from
me, ma'am. I don't know much about them. Now, Wid--Wid Gardner--