lease go on."

"I thought it very strange; that he would let even a business errand
take him away from us on our first evening; and so I--I made an excuse
to the others and followed him. Breckenridge, I saw him throw the stone
from the top of that cliff--the stone that came so near killing you or
Mr. Bromley, or both of you."

There had been a time when he would have tried to convince her that she
must doubt the evidence of her own senses; but now it was too late: that
milestone had been passed in the first broken sentence of her pitiful
confession.

"There was no harm done, that time," he said, groping loyally for the
available word of comforting.

"It was God's mercy," she asserted. "But listen again: that other night,
when Mr. Bromley was hurt ... After you had gone with the man who came
for you, I hurried to find my father, meaning to ask him to send Otto in
the little car to see if there was anything we could do. Aunt June said
that father was lying down in the library: he was not there. I ran
up-stairs. His coat and waistcoat were on the bed, and his
mackintosh--the one he always wears when he goes out after sundown--was
gone. After a little while he came in, hurriedly, secretly, and he would
not believe me when I told him Mr. Bromley was hurt; he seemed to be
sure it must be some one else. Then I knew. He had gone out to waylay
you on your walk back to the camp, and by some means had mistaken Mr.
Bromley for you."

She was in the full flood-tide of the heart-broken confession now, and
in sheer pity he tried to stop her.

"Let it all go," he counselled tenderly. "What is done, is done; and now
that the work here is also done, there will be no more trouble for you."

"No; I must go on," she insisted. "Since others, who have no right to
know, have found out, I must tell you."

"Others?" he queried.

"Yes: Mr. Wingfield, for one. Unlike you, he has not tried to be
charitable. He believes----"

"He doesn't love you as I do," Ballard interrupted quickly.

"He doesn't love me at all--that way; it's Dosia. Hadn't you suspected?
That was why he joined Aunt Janet's party--to be with Dosia."

"Thus vanishes the final shadow: there is nothing to come between us
now," he exulted; and his unhurt arm drew her close.

"Don't!" she shuddered, shrinking away from him. "That is the bitterest
drop in the cup of misery. You refuse to think of the awful heritage I
should bring you; but I think of it--day and night. Whe