"I thought some one must--I felt I could have hanged you if I had spoken out what I had seen--and I--married you instead!" His eyes were on the ground.

When he raised them she was smiling through unshed tears.

But she had spoken first.
"It was not a very terrible motive, after all," she had said; "at least, it has not been such a very terrible--punishment!" "No; but that was because I did the very last thing I ever thought of doing." "And that was ?" "To fall in love with you at the beginning!" Rachel gave a little start.
"Although you thought me guilty ?" "That made no difference at all.

But I have thought it less and less, until, on the night you appealed first to me and then to Langholm--on thinking over that night--it was impossible to suppose it any more." Rachel rose, her cheeks divinely red, her lip trembling, her hand outstretched.
"And you fell in love with me!" she murmured.
"God knows I did, Rachel, in my own way," said Steel.
"I am so glad!" whispered his wife.
THE END.