is--he was not very nice before he went
away," wailed out a sad voice from behind the linen cambric and lace, "and
he went away without a kind word, and left me hardly any money--and he
hasn't sent me any word since--and fa-father won't have anything to do with
me any more--but--but--it's not that I mind, David. I don't think about those
things at all. I'm so unhappy about you. I feel you do not forgive me, and
I cannot stand it any longer. I have made a fearful mistake, and you are
angry with me--I think about it at night"--the voice was growing lower now,
and the sentences broken by sobs that told better than words what distress
the sufferer would convey.

"I have been so wicked--and you were so good and kind--and now you will
never forgive me--I think it will kill me to keep on thinking about it--"
her voice trailed off in tears again.

David white with anguish sprang to his feet.

"Oh, Kate," he cried, "my darling! Don't talk that way. You know I forgive
you. Look up and tell me you know I forgive you."

Almost she smiled her triumph beneath her sobs in the little lace border,
but she looked up with real tears on her face. Even her tears obeyed her
will. She was a good actress, also she knew her power over David.

"Oh, David," she cried, standing up and clasping her hands beseechingly,
"can it be true? Do you really forgive me? Tell me again."

She came and stood temptingly near to the stern, suffering man wild with
the tumult that raged within him. Her golden head was near his shoulder
where it had rested more than once in time gone by. He looked down at her
from his suffering height his arms folded tightly and said, as though
taking oath before a court of justice:

"I do."

She looked up with her pleading blue eyes, like two jewels of light now,
questioning whether she might yet go one step further. Her breath came
quick and soft, he fancied it touched his cheek, though she was not tall
enough for that. She lifted her tear-wet face like a flower after a storm,
and pleaded with her eyes once more, saying in a whisper very soft and
sweet:

"If you really forgive me, then kiss me, just once, so I may remember it
always."

It was more than he could bear. He caught her to himself and pressed his
lips upon hers in one frenzied kiss of torture. It was as if wrung from
him against his will. Then suddenly it came upon him what he had done, as
he held her in his arms, and he put her from him gently, as a mother