ght you couldn't love me any
more--I couldn't bear the thought of looking in your eyes and seeing
aversion there."

Walter Grant leaned forward.

"Look in my eyes, Avery. Do you see any aversion?"

Avery forced herself to look. What she saw covered her face with a hot
blush.

"Did you think my love such a poor and superficial thing, Avery," he
said sternly, "that it must vanish because a blemish came on your
fairness? Do you think _that_ would change me? Was your own love for
me so slight?"

"No--no," she sobbed. "I have loved you every moment of my life,
Walter. Oh, don't look at me so sternly."

"If you had even told me," he said. "You said I was never to try to
look on your face again--and they told me you had gone away. You sent
me back my ring."

"I kept the old one," she interrupted, holding out her hand, "the
first one you ever gave me--do you remember, Walter? When we were boy
and girl."

"You robbed me of all that made life worth while, Avery. Do you wonder
that I've been a bitter man?"

"I was wrong--I was wrong," she sobbed. "I should have believed in
you. But don't you think I've paid, too? Forgive me, Walter--it's too
late to atone--but forgive me."

"_Is_ it too late?" he asked gravely.

She pointed to the scar.

"Could you endure seeing this opposite to you every day at your
table?" she asked bitterly.

"Yes--if I could see your sweet eyes and your beloved smile with it,
Avery," he answered passionately. "Oh, Avery, it was _you_ I
loved--not your outward favor. Oh, how foolish you were--foolish and
morbid! You always put too high a value on beauty, Avery. If I had
dreamed of the true state of the case--if I had known you were here
all these years--why I heard a rumor long ago that you had married,
Avery--but if I had known I would have come to you and _made_ you
be--sensible."

She gave a little laugh at his lame conclusion. That was so like the
old Walter. Then her eyes filled with tears as he took her in his
arms.

* * * * *

The door of the blue room opened. Jims did not look up. It was Aunt
Augusta, of course--and she had heard the whole story.

"Jims, boy."

Jims lifted his miserable eyes. It was Uncle Walter--but a different
Uncle Walter--an Uncle Walter with laughing eyes and a strange
radiance of youth about him.

"Poor, lonely little fellow," said Uncle Walter unexpectedly. "Jims,
would you like Miss Avery to come _here_--and live with u