her, "To let you say
it--say it to me!"

"Dearest!" she repeated. "Dearest, do not go! There is no need! I
cannot bear it! Do not go!"

"No need? My God! When I could fling myself over, if it were not for
him! To have let you say it--to me--to a liar! thief! murderer!"

"Dearest!" she whispered. "Hush! You are delirious--you do not
know--"

"It is you who do not know!" he cried. "But you shall--everything--all
my cowardly baseness!" The confession burst from him in a torrent of
self-denunciation--"That trip to town, when we went to fetch them, I
lied to you about those bridge plans. It was not true that I found
them. He handed them to me. He took no receipt. I looked at them and
saw how wonderful they were. I stole them. My father had threatened to
cast me off if I did not do something worth while. I was desperate. So
I stole your brother's plans. I copied them--"

"You know about Tom!" she interrupted. "But of course. You saw me tell
him, there at the ravine."

"I saw you put your arms about his neck and kiss him; but I did not
hear--I did not see the truth. I believed--that is the worst of it
all--I believed it possible that you--_you_--!... That devil Gowan....
But that is no excuse. Had I not already doubted you.... And I went
down--down into hell, with only one purpose--to make certain that he
never should come up again!"

"Dear Christ!" whispered the girl--"Dear Christ! He has gone mad!"

"No, Isobel," he said, his voice slow and dead with the calm of utter
despair, "I am not mad. I have never been mad except for a little
while after you put your arms about his neck. No--For years I was a
fool, a profligate fool, wasting my life as I wasted all those
thousands of dollars that I had not earned. I turned thief--a
despicable sneak thief. At last the dirty crime found me out. I
received a small share of the punishment that I deserved. Then you
took me in--without question--treated me as a man. God knows I tried
to be one!"

"You were!--you are!" she broke in. "This is all a mistake--a cruel,
hideous mistake!"

"I tried to go," he went on unflinchingly. "You urged me to stay. I
was weak. I could not force myself to leave you."

"Because--because!" she murmured.

"All the more reason why I should have gone," he replied. "But I was
weak, unfit. I lied to you and won your pity. You gave me the chance
to stay and prove myself what I am. Down there, when he told me what I
should have guessed--what I must h