grey eyes. He had seen her cold, stately,
a little unapproachable, but he had never seen scorn in those eyes. He
had never seen the red lips curled with contempt. He knew nothing of her
in this guise, as another man did.

And now the girl seemed to be all woman, tender, sympathetic, and the
courage came to him; he sate himself beside her and took her hand in
his, and it gave him hope that she did not draw it away.

What he said, how he said it, how he stumbled over his story of love and
devotion he never knew. But it was an honest story, a story that did him
honour, and did honour too to the woman he told it to.

"I love you, dear. I have loved you from the moment I first saw you. I
know you are high above me. I know what I am, an unlovely sort of
fellow, rough and--and not fit to touch your hand--" for, being deeply
in love, his opinion of himself had naturally sunk to zero. The
perfection of the beloved object always makes an honest man painfully
conscious of his own inferiority and unworthiness. And so it was with
Johnny Everard, this day beside the green pool. And the slim, cool hand
was not withdrawn.

"Johnny, what are you asking me? Why have you come here to me? What do
you want--of me?" she asked, yet did not look him in the face, but sat
with eyes resting on the placid water.

"Just to tell you that--to tell you how I love you, Joan."

Another man had told her that; the echo of his words came back to her
from the past. How often those words of his had come back; she could
never forget them. Yet she told herself that she hated him who had
uttered them, hated him, for was he not a proved craven?

_("If, in telling you that I love you, is a sin fast all forgiveness, I
glory in it. I take not one word of it back.")_

And now another, a worthier, better man, was telling her the same story,
holding her hand, and, she knew, looking into her face; yet her eyes did
not meet his.

And, listening to him, her heart grew more bitter than ever before to
the man who had uttered those words she would never forget, bitter
against him, yet more against herself. For she was conscious of shame
and anger--at her woman's weakness, at the folly of which her woman's
heart was capable.

"I know I am not fit for you, not good enough for you, Joan. There isn't
a man living who would be--but--I love you--dear, and with God's help I
would try to make you a happy woman."

Manly words, honest and sincere, she knew, as must be a