ometimes minutes
separated them.

"Can you--will you keep me--on the 'Herald'?"

"Keep you----"

"Will you--let me--help?"

He came near her. "I don't understand. Is it you--you--who are here
again?"

"Have you--forgiven me? You know now why I wouldn't--resign? You forgive
my--that telegram?"

"What telegram?"

"That one that came to you--this morning."

"_Your_ telegram?"

"Yes."

"Did you send me one?"

"Yes."

"It did not come to me."

"Yes--it did."

"But there--What was it about?"

"It was signed," she said, "it was signed--" She paused and turned half
way, not lifting the downcast lashes; her hand, laid upon the arm of the
bench, was shaking; she put it behind her. Then her eyes were lifted a
little, and, though they did not meet his, he saw them, and a strange,
frightened glory leaped in his heart. Her voice fell still lower and two
heavy tears rolled down her cheeks. "It was signed," she whispered, "it
was signed--'H. Fisbee.'"

He began to tremble from head to foot. There was a long silence. She had
turned quite away from him. When he spoke, his voice was as low as hers,
and he spoke as slowly as she had.

"You mean--then--it was--you?"

"Yes."

"You!"

"Yes."

"And you have been here all the time?"

"All--all except the week you were--hurt, and that--that one evening."

The bright veil which wrapped them was drawn away, and they stood in the
silent, gathering dusk.

He tried to loosen his neck-band; it seemed to be choking him. "I--I
can't--I don't comprehend it. I am trying to realize what it----"

"It means nothing," she answered.

"There was an editorial, yesterday," he said, "an editorial that I
thought was about Rodney McCune. Did you write it?"

"Yes."

"It was about--me--wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"It said--it said--that I had won the love of every person in Carlow
County."

Suddenly she found her voice. "Do not misunderstand me," she said
rapidly. "I have done the little that I have done out of gratitude." She
faced him now, but without meeting his eyes. "I told you, remember,
that you would understand some day what I meant by that, and the day has
come. I owed you more gratitude than a woman ever owed a man before, I
think, and I would have died to pay a part of it. I set every gossip's
tongue in Rouen clacking at the very start, in the merest amateurish
preparation for the work Mr. Macauley gave me. That was nothing. And the
rest has been the happiest time in