not speak, and presently she touched his hands
softly with her slender fingers, it seemed like the caress of an angel's
wing.

"Listen," she said, so gently. "Oh, you must not grieve--but it was too
good to be true, our day. I ought to have known to where we were
drifting, I am wicked to have let you say all you have said to-day, but
oh, I was asleep, I think, and I only knew that I was happy. But now you
have shown me--and oh, the dream is broken up. Come, let us go back to
the world."

Then he raised his eyes to her face, and they were haggard and
miserable.

How her simple speech, blaming herself who was all innocent, touched his
heart and filled him with shame at his unworthiness.

"Oh, forgive me!" he pleaded. "Oh, please forgive me! I am mad, I think,
I love you so--and I had to tell you--and yes, I will say it all now,
and then you can punish me. From the first moment I looked into your
angel eyes it has been growing, you are so true and so sweet, and so
miles beyond all other women in the world. Each minute I have loved you
more--and all the time I thought to win you. Yes, you may well turn
away, and shrink from me now that you know the brute I am. I thought I
would make you love me, and you would forgive me then. But I have
suddenly seen your soul, my darling, and I am ashamed, and I can only
ask you to forgive me and let me worship you and be your slave--I will
not ask for any return--only to worship you and be your slave--that I
may show you I am not all brute and may earn your pardon."

And then Theodora's blindness fell from her and she knew that she loved
him--she had faced the fact at last. And all over her being there
thrilled a mad, wild joy. It surged up and crushed out fear and
pain--for just one moment--and then she too, in her turn, covered her
face with her hands.

"Oh, hush! hush!" she said. "What have you done--what have we both
done!"

It was characteristic of her that now she realized she loved him she did
not fence any longer, she never thought of concealing it from him or of
blaming him. They were sinners both, he and she equally guilty.

Another woman might have argued, "He is fooling me; perhaps he has said
these things before--I must at least hide my own heart," but not
Theodora. Her trust was complete--she loved him--therefore he was a
perfect knight--and if he was wicked she was wicked too.

Her gentian eyes were full of tears as she let fall her hands and looked
at him. "Oh