other, for I have learned to be a man under it."

Ruth drew herself away, clinging to the horse's mane, her body rigid and
her tears dry.

"You mean you have been deceiving me and have asked me to marry you
without my knowing your real name?" she asked, all her fear and
suspicion of men returning. If Jack had once hated what she called
"Ruth's schoolmarm manner," Jim Colter was now to know her in the light
of an upright judge.

"Of course I meant to tell you my story some day, Ruth," he replied
almost top humbly. "I thought things over a long time and I didn't see
how I was doing you any harm to keep my old name and past a secret from
you until you learned to love me. Maybe I was mistaken, but I didn't
want you to love the man I used to be, I wanted you to love the man I am
now. I could see that you were growing more understanding every day
about little things, and not so hard and narrow, and I thought maybe if
you loved me you'd be able to forgive something that happened so many
years ago it seems almost like a bad dream."

"I never could marry anyone who deceived me," the girl returned
frigidly.

"I wasn't deceiving you, I was just waiting to tell you. Maybe you will
listen to the story now?" Jim asked. "It won't take long." Then before
Ruth could reply he went on: "My father and mother had two sons, and I
was the older. We were an old Virginia family and had been rich before
the war. I was a good-for-nothing fellow, never studied, had no ambition
and used to spend all of my time out of doors. My brother Ben was a
different sort, a brilliant, studious chap, and we believed he would
some day restore the family fortunes. After graduating at the high
school he went to Richmond to study law, but as I had never studied
anything there was nothing for me to do but to get a job as clerk in a
store in our town. Both of us were boys at this time, Ben twenty and I
only a little older. One night pretty late I was alone in the store, and
Ben appeared, saying he had come down from Richmond because he had to
have three hundred dollars quick, that very night. Well, I knew that
father and mother and I didn't have thirty dollars between us. Ben
suggested that I borrow the money from my employer, as I knew the
combination of his safe. In a few days Ben was sure he would have the
money to pay back and I could explain the whole situation. I am not
excusing myself, Ruth. I knew I was sinning when I borrowed another
man's money witho