edge. In a moment of bitter
disappointment, he wondered how he had ever dared to advance from the
accident of a chance meeting to friendship, and from friendship to love.

"I--I congratulate you," he said, lamely, for want of something better
to say.

"On what?" she asked. "Because the man to whom I am engaged doesn't
understand what this daubing of mine means to me?"

"No, not on that; but on being betrothed," he replied, and then added,
bluntly, "You see,--I--I didn't know it. You never told me. No, you
never told me anything about it in all these months in which--in which
you've been just Mary Allen, and I, Bill Jones!"

He was not aware of the sorry tragedy in his voice that contrasted so
sharply with the banality of his words. He felt that he was but a
pitiful jester who was like a clown, compelled to play a merry part
when there was anguish in his mind. But--he must play.

"I don't know why I was such a fool!" he declared. "Why I thought it
could go on in this way--with you as Mary Allen, and I as Bill Jones.
You see--I may as well tell the truth--now that it's come to this--You
see, I didn't know your name, or who you were! I thought on the day that
we met in Fifth Avenue you were someone in the trade, and I was ashamed
to admit that I'd forgotten where you came from. You knew who I was, but
I couldn't remember you. And so, after that first meeting, I was a
coward. I'm a coward now, Mary! Now that it doesn't matter!"

He sat staring at the rug and striving to his utmost to think of
something to say in his own defense.

"Well," she said, "since you have been so frank, I suppose that I may as
well add my confession. I never knew, until within the last five
minutes, who you were. Therefore I had nothing the best of you."

"What? What's that?" he asked as if incredulous, or in fear that he had
not heard her words aright.

He lifted his eyes and saw that she was now facing him.

"It's the truth," she bravely admitted. "I never knew that your name was
James Gollop, and that you were a commercial man, until within the last
five minutes! If there were need I could swear it."

"Then," he demanded, blankly, "who in the deuce did you think I was,
anyhow?"

"I thought," she said with a slight shrug, "that you were Judge James
Woodworth-Granger, of whom I suppose you have never heard. He is the
Judge of the Fourth District Court, seated in a small city called
Princetown."

He was so astounded that for the mome