and justice at your hands. Yet you are a
fair man, and some terrible mistake seems to have been made somehow.
Tell me, please, why did you leave us as you did?"

He answered her, Yankee-wise, with a counter question: "Why did you show
Abbie my poem?"

"Abbie--your poem--! I do not understand!" Her genuine wonder and
surprise made him feel uneasy. 'Could it be possible, after all, that
she was guiltless? If so--God! what a fool he had made of himself! He
crossed the room impulsively, and laying his hand on her shoulder,
looked squarely into her dewy eyes. She met his look bravely, then
gently removing his hand, walked in her turn to the door. He intercepted
her with a quick movement, his jaws squaring with determination.

"Let us have this thing out, here and now! Why did you deliberately make
a laughing stock of me by exhibiting that foolish bit of verse and so
expose me to the ridicule of the whole range? I want the truth."

"And you could think me guilty of that!" There was more of sorrowful
pity than indignation in the words and they cut him like a bullet. "Let
me pass, please. I have no further curiosity to satisfy."

He barred the way obstinately, a shamed contrition struggling with
sullen incredulity for the mastery. "Wait a minute," he said thickly.
"If I am wrong in this I humbly beg your pardon, but I am going to be
sure before I humiliate myself unnecessarily." Angry as she was, she had
much difficulty to repress a smile at the arrogance of his vanity.

"Abbie taunted me with writing poetry and the men joined in her
insinuations. Their only knowledge of my foolishness could have been
derived from one source--the notebook which I lost and which you
returned to me. There was no reference to it made before it came into
your possession. What was I to infer?"

"That book was handed to me by my mother, who, as I understand, got it
from one of the men who found it at the gate. He thought it belonged to
my brother and so gave it to her. I beg to assure you that no one saw or
handled it while in my possession but myself. And I certainly have not
discussed its contents with any one." Reading full belief in his eyes,
she recovered her composure instantly and thereafter had him on the
defensive.

"Was the poetry really as bad as all that?" she asked with such apparent
innocent naivete that he was compelled against his will to smile
somewhat sheepishly.

"It was arrant nonsense," he confessed. And then, somewhat