s and impulsive enough to
sacrifice your future--in the absence of your father, it will become
my plain duty, as the protector in whose hands he has placed you, to
prevent such rashness. The very words you speak, and the manner in which
you say them, prove that you are a mere child, and have not dreamed what
love is."

Then the Angel grew splendid. A rosy flush swept the pallor of fear
from her face. Her big eyes widened and dilated with intense lights. She
seemed to leap to the height and the dignity of superb womanhood before
their wondering gaze.

"I never have had to dream of love," she said proudly. "I never have
known anything else, in all my life, but to love everyone and to have
everyone love me. And there never has been anyone so dear as Freckles.
If you will remember, we have been through a good deal together. I do
love Freckles, just as I say I do. I don't know anything about the love
of sweethearts, but I love him with all the love in my heart, and I
think that will satisfy him."

"Surely it should!" muttered the man of knives and lancets.

McLean reached to take hold of the Angel, but she saw the movement and
swiftly stepped back.

"As for my father," she continued, "he at once told me what he learned
from you about Freckles. I've known all you know for several weeks. That
knowledge didn't change your love for him a particle. I think the Bird
Woman loved him more. Why should you two have all the fine perceptions
there are? Can't I see how brave, trustworthy, and splendid he is? Can't
I see how his soul vibrates with his music, his love of beautiful things
and the pangs of loneliness and heart hunger? Must you two love him
with all the love there is, and I give him none? My father is never
unreasonable. He won't expect me not to love Freckles, or not to tell
him so, if the telling will save him."

She darted past McLean into Freckles' room, closed the door, and turned
the key.

CHAPTER XVIII

Wherein Freckles refuses Love Without Knowledge of Honorable Birth, and
the Angel Goes in Quest of it

Freckles lay on a flat pillow, his body immovable in a plaster cast, his
maimed arm, as always, hidden. His greedy gaze fastened at once on the
Angel's face. She crossed to him with light step and bent over him with
infinite tenderness. Her heart ached at the change in his appearance. He
seemed so weak, heart hungry, so utterly hopeless, so alone. She could
see that the night had been one long terror.