own name. Perhaps that was not strange as I always
lived under another. So it was not that, not any selfish motive, which
impelled me to accompany you. I came because--because I knew you
needed me. I had an intuition that you were going into danger, into
some trap. I cannot explain, no woman can, how such knowledge lays
hold upon her. I merely acted instinctively. It was not until that
afternoon that I realized clearly what this all meant to me personally.
I seemed to wake up as from a dream. Then I sat down in the rest room
of one of those big department stores, and thought it all out. At
first I determined to tell you everything, but I did--did not know you
at all. I trusted you, I believed in you; you had impressed me as
being a real man. But this was merely a woman's intuition. There were
circumstances that made me doubt, that compelled caution. I--I had to
test you, Gordon Craig."

"My only wonder is that you retained any confidence."

"Oh, but I did," she insisted warmly. "That alone brought me here. I
thought of appealing to a lawyer, to the police, and then your face
rose up before me, and my decision was made. I came back to you that
night because--because I believed you to be a gentleman."

"And now? henceforth?"

Her eyes never wavered, although there was a high color in her cheeks
as my hands clasped her own more closely.

"I am convinced I chose aright. You are the man I thought you to be.
I am glad I came."

For an instant the hot blood coursed through my veins; I seemed to see
only the beauty of her flesh. Wild words leaped to my lips, only to be
choked back unspoken, although I scarcely knew what strength combined
to win the swift struggle. Impulse, made with sudden revelation of
love, swept me perilously near to outburst, yet reason held
sufficiently firm to restrain; the flood of passion. I knew I must
refrain; I read it in the calm depths of those eyes fronting me in
frank friendship. A word, a single, mad, ill-considered word, would
sever the bond between us as though cleft by a sword. With any other I
might have dared all, but not with her. Reckless as my nature had
grown in the hard school of life, I shrank from this test, dreading to
see her face change, her attitude harden. And it would; there had
already been sufficient revealment of her character to make me aware of
how firm a line she drew between right and wrong. It was not in her
nature to compromise. She tr