uld do no less than meet her on her own high
ground.

"She said," the girl's sweet, remote voice went on, "that you had loved
each other all your lives. Is that true, too?"

He had hoped that he might be spared the bitterness of this, but since
only one answer was possible, "It is true," he said hoarsely, "it is
true that we loved each other--long ago."

"Long ago--and now?" He was to be spared nothing, it seemed. Her wide
eyes searched his face. Lest she should read it too plainly, he
bowed his head.

Then suddenly, even as she drew back from him, hurt to the heart, some
trick of moonlight on his half-hidden face, linked to swift memory,
showed her another moonlight night, a canoe, a story told--and in a
flash the miracle had happened. Intuition had leaped the gulf of his
enforced silence--Esther knew.

A great wonder grew in her eyes, an immense relief.

"Why," she spoke whisperingly, "I see, I know! She, my mother, is the
girl you told me of. The girl you married--"

She did not need the confirmation of his miserable eyes. It was all
quite plain. With a little broken sigh of understanding, she leaned her
head against the gate post and, all child again, began to cry softly
behind the shelter of her hands.

"Esther!"

He could say nothing, do nothing. He dared not even touch the dark, bent
head. But we may well pity him as he watched her.

The girl's sobbing wore itself out and presently she lifted
tear-drenched eyes, like the blue of the sky after rain. Her tragic,
unnatural composure had all been wept away.

"I understand--now," she faltered. "Before, I didn't. I thought dreadful
things. I thought that I--that you--oh, I couldn't bear the things I
thought! But it's better now. You did love me--didn't you?"

"Before God--yes!"

She went on dreamily. "It would have been too terrible if you hadn't--if
you had just pretended--had been amusing yourself--been false and base.
But I felt all along that you were never that. I knew there must be
some explanation and it didn't seem wrong to ask. Instead of pretending
that I didn't know all the things you had not time to say. Forgive me
for ever doubting that you were brave and good."

"Spare me--"

She was not yet old enough to understand the tragic appeal. For she
leaned nearer, laying her soft hand over his clenched ones.

"It is all so very, very sad," she said with quaint simplicity which was
part of her, "but not so bad--oh, not nearly so bad as if you