I am glad you have told me, for I thought--I
feared you were ashamed of us, and it hurt me a little."

There was a tremor in her voice which made Neil tighten the clasp of his
arm around her, while he bent his head so low that his hair touched her
forehead, as he exclaimed:

"Ashamed of you, Bessie! Never! How could I be ashamed of the dearest,
sweetest little cousin a man ever had? I tell you I am the victim of
circumstances!"

And bending his head still lower, "the victim of circumstances" kissed
the girlish lips, which kissed him back again in token of
reconciliation, and restored faith in him.

Poor, tired Jack, dreaming that night that he was a circus-rider and
jumping through a hoop for Bessie's pleasure, would have felt that all
his fatigue and back ache, and the plaster which caused him so much
discomfort, might have been spared, or at least were wasted on the girl
with whom the kiss given in the deepening twilight was more powerful
than all he had done for her, could he have known of that scene in the
gardens. But he did not know of it, and at a comparatively early hour
next morning he was at Mrs. Buncher's, where Bessie greeted him with her
sweetest smile and thanked him again for all he had done for them.

"Don't speak of it, I beg; it is so very little, I only wish there was
really something I could do to prove my willingness to serve you," he
said.

They were standing alone by the window looking into the street, and as
Jack said this there came a troubled look on Bessie's face, find after
waiting a moment, she said:

"There is something you can do, if you will: something which will please
me very much, and prove you the good man I believe you to be."

"Command me, and it is done," Jack said; and Bessie continued:

"If you ever meet mother again at Monte Carlo, or anywhere, don't play
with her for money; promise me this."

"I promise," Jack answered, unhesitatingly; and, emboldened by his
promptness, Bessie went on:

"And, oh, Mr. Trevellian, if you would never again play with any one for
money, even the smallest sum. It is gambling just the same; it is
wicked; it leads to so much that is bad. It was my grandfather's ruin,
and he knew it and repented bitterly, for it left his son nothing but
poverty, and that is why we are so poor, father and I; gambling did it
all."

There were tears in Bessie's eyes, and they went straight to Jack's
heart. He was not an inveterate gambler, though he had los