But it has taken all my courage--and in the end you will drive me away--" Again he looked upon the miracle of tears in wide-open, unfaltering eyes, tears which she did not brush away, but through which, in a moment, she smiled at him as no woman had ever smiled at him before.

And with the tears there seemed to possess her a pride which lifted her above all confusion, a living spirit of will and courage and womanhood that broke away the dark clouds of suspicion and fear that had gathered in his mind.

He tried to speak, and his lips were thick.
"You have come--because you know I love you, and you--" "Because, from the beginning, it must have been a great faith in you that inspired me, Alan Holt." "There must have been more than that," he persisted.

"Some other reason." "Two," she acknowledged, and now he noticed that with the dissolution of tears a flush of color was returning into her cheeks.
"And those--" "One it is impossible for you to know; the other, if I tell you, will make you despise me.

I am sure of that." "It has to do with John Graham ?" She bowed her head.