t is real love.

"He came here early Sunday morning and asked me to go away with him. I
could not understand and he did not explain. He simply said that
something had happened that would prevent him from ever becoming mayor
of Los Angeles and that he was going away, never to return.

"'If you love me, you will come with me,' he said. I was bewildered, of
course, but I knew that he was right. It was the test, a test far
greater than I had ever dreamed would come to me.

"I asked him why it was that he should be compelled to leave the city.
He assured me that he had committed no crime. He was very earnest as he
spoke and so serious that I knew something terrible had happened. He
declared again and again that he loved me and that if I loved him I
would go with him and ask no questions. It was all so overwhelming that
I begged him to leave me, to let me decide alone.

"'I will let you know, tonight,' I told him. 'Unless you hear from me
you will know that I have decided I cannot do what you have asked me.'

"Soon after he was gone I realized that--that I did not love him with
the one great love. I knew that I didn't because I had not thrown myself
into his arms and told him, as Ruth told Naomi, 'For whither thou goest
I will go; and where thou lodgest I will lodge.'

"I need not tell you in details of how bewildered I was by his strange
request and what I went through when I found that I did not really love
him. Of course, I tried to imagine what had occurred that caused him to
ask me to leave everything and go away with him. Whatever it was, I felt
it was cowardly of him to leave unless it was all his own fault.

"So he did not hear from me last night and this morning I read of what
he stands accused. But I was prepared. I had chosen my course and what I
read only made me certain that I was right; that I did not truly love
him, never had and never could. I pitied his weakness. I could see how
he had gone astray. You see, I have often wondered how it was he had
money so suddenly after everything he once had had gone from him. The
source of his wealth was always a mystery to me."

She paused and looking toward the casement window with its red
geraniums, she added, softly: "That is my story. That is what has
happened."

In the silence that followed they were both startled to hear footsteps
on the porch outside. Consuello looked toward him, quickly, with an
expression that warned him. The door swung open and Gibson st