But you will understand, Mistress Winthrop," and he looked her fully in the face, attempting in vain to dissemble the agony in his eyes--he who a little while ago had been almost happy--"that if ever it should happen that I should come to love a woman who is worthy of being loved, I who am nameless have no name to offer her." Revelation illumined her mind as in a flash.

She looked at him.
"Was--was that what you meant, that day we thought you dying, when you said to me--for it was to me you spoke, to me alone--that it was better so ?" He inclined his head.

"That is what I meant," he answered.
Her lids drooped; her cheeks were very white, and he remarked the swift, agitated surge of her bosom, the fingers that were plucking at one another in her lap.

Without looking up, she spoke again.

"If you had the love to offer, what would the rest matter?
What is a name that it should weigh so much ?" "Heyday!" He sighed, and smiled very wistfully.