her excited face flushing and paling in rapid
alternation. Blake had pulled on his left glove, but had kept his
right hand bare for her. As he held it out he looked up from the taut
rope at his feet and saw her excessively agitated face.

[Illustration: "You have something to tell me--your voice--your eyes--"]

"Why, Miss Chuckie!" he remonstrated, "you're not going to break down
now. You see how Jenny takes it. There's nothing to fear."

"Oh, but, Tom!" she panted, "you--you don't understand! you don't
know! It's not merely the danger! It's the dreadful thought that if
you--if you should not--come back--and I hadn't told you!"

"Told me?" he echoed in hushed wonderment as her anguished soul looked
out at him through her wide eyes and he sensed the first vague
foreshadowing of the truth. "You have something to tell me--your
voice!--your eyes!--"

"You see it! You know me!" she gasped, and she flung herself into his
arms. Straining herself to him in half frantic ecstasy, she murmured
in a broken whisper: "Yes! I am--am Belle! It is wicked and selfish to
tell you; but to have you go down there without first--I could not
bear it! Yet I--I shall not drag you down--disgrace you. Never that!
I'll go away!... Oh, Tom! dear Tom!"

He had stood dumfounded by the revelation of her identity. At first he
could not speak; hardly could he think. His eyes stared into hers with
a dazed look. But before she could finish her impassioned declaration
of self-abnegation he roused from his bewilderment, and his great
arms closed about her quivering body. He crushed her to him and
pressed his lips upon her white forehead.

"Belle!--poor little Belle!... But why? Tell me why? All this time,
and you never showed by a single word or look!"

"I did!" she sought to defend herself from the tender reproach. "I
did, but I--I was afraid to tell."

"Afraid?"

The girl's face flamed scarlet with shame. She sought to draw away
from him. "Let me go, Tom! oh, please, let me go! I am a selfish,
wicked girl! I have done it! I have done it! Now there is no help for
it! She must be told--all!"

"All?" he questioned.

"Yes, all, Tom! I cannot deny Mary! She saved me! I believe she is in
Heaven. She could not help doing what she did. She could not help it,
Tom--and she saved me! I must give you up--go away; but I can never,
never deny my sister!"

Blake swung half around with the quivering girl, and looked over her
downbent head at his wife. Ge