ll the more sacred because they
cannot defend them. I should be sorry indeed to leave behind me such a
reputation as I seem to have hereabouts--though, indeed, a man is very
helpless in these cases. He is at a hopeless disadvantage when a woman
is his traducer. I can see that Jim Urquhart will never be a friend of
mine again, whatever happens."

"He shall know the truth. Everybody shall know the truth," said Mary.

"How can everybody know the truth? Only by my own affidavit, and that
would not be believed. Besides, it is not for me to deny--at the cost
of branding a lady a liar."

It was the straight word, regardless of manners, with this sea-bred man.

"You need not. I know how to do it so that people will believe. I am
going to write a letter to the newspaper--a plain statement, that will
fully exonerate you."

He nearly jumped out of his chair with the fright she gave him.

"You will do nothing so ridiculous!" he exclaimed angrily.

"It is the only way," said she--"the only way to make sure."

"If you do," he menaced her, "I shall simply write another for the next
issue to flatly contradict you."

"Then you would be a liar."

"That doesn't matter in the least. I must be a man first. I am not
going to let you ruin yourself."

"Ah, that is done already! Nothing can make it worse--for me."

He looked at her, taking in the words, in some sort understanding them.
She lifted her eyes to look at him, and what he saw behind the look
went to his kindly heart. He "felt" for her for the first time.

"May I go now?" she whispered.

His answer was to move to a seat beside her.

"I wish you would tell me," he said, in more humane tones, "how you
came to do it. I would like to understand, and I can't, for the life of
me. You must have had some reason. DID I do anything, unknowing--"

She shook her head hopelessly.

"No. You were only kind and good, as you would have been to anyone."

"Kind and good? Rubbish! It was you--all of you--who were kind and
good. Oh, I don't forget what you did for me, and never shall. I
feel"--it was the very feeling that had so oppressed him in the case of
the lady at Sandridge--"under a load of obligation to you that I can
never hope to discharge. But still--but still--though I trust I showed
some of the gratitude I felt--I cannot remember how I came to give you
the idea--I must have done something, I suppose; one is a blundering
fool without knowing it--"

"No," she protested--"n