otten, swept away as it by the
hand of grief. All his pre-imagined repression vanished. He was but the
heart-broken jester now, impulsive, outspoken.

"Oh, if I could live these few times over again, I think I could die
happy! Mary! Mary! I never knew until yesterday how precious they were.
Never knew that when Bill Jones died, the heart of me died with him!
I'm--I'm----" He checked himself, shut his hands tightly over the arms
of his chair, and exclaimed, "I'm sorry I said that. I didn't mean to
tell you anything; because I've no right to say anything of the sort to
you--now that Bill Jones is dead! I can't seem to remember that he was
executed in that moment when you told me of your betrothal."

She abruptly dropped the steaming kettle back into the fender and he
feared that she thus indicated resentment of his outburst. She got to
her feet and walked across to the window where the rapidly waning light
seemed hastily pulling drop curtains over their brief romance and he,
fearful that he had offended her, sat dejectedly in his chair.

"One imagines many things! One is curious about them, sometimes," she
said, softly. "And so--and so I wonder what you would have said, if
Bill Jones had not passed out."

She stood as if considering something of grave importance and then, as
if resolved, turned and came back until she stood near the chair in
which he sat with bent head and shoulders, so unlike the buoyant, erect
man she had known.

"It is but a week ago when being--being somewhat tired of neglect, I
wrote a letter. Oh, I could kick myself for that! I suppose it must have
been rather--let's say--familiar. It was addressed to Judge Granger. By
return mail came a proposal of marriage and--well--I accepted it. Then
he came on and--oh, it was a dreadful mixup! After just one evening
together I knew that he wasn't, and never could have been, Bill Jones,
the Pirate. And I didn't know what to do, or who, or what Bill Jones
really was, and--and I was furious, disappointed and humiliated, and
then you returned and--and----"

She paused and he looked up to find that her eyes were not on him, and
that she was twisting her wisp of a handkerchief between her fingers
quite as if considering whether such fury, disappointment and
humiliation could ever be forgiven. He felt that he was on trial and
that his future hung upon her judgment.

"But--but--it wasn't altogether my fault--Mary," he pleaded in a voice
in which contrition, di