One was to be read immediately, the other when I was
found--and I had found myself. Maybe it wasn't exactly fair, but you
couldn't expect two women to resist a temptation like that. And--_I
wanted to know_."
She did not lower her eyes or turn her head aside as she made the
confession. Her gaze met Alan's with beautiful steadiness.
"And then I believed. I knew, because of what you said in that letter,
that you were the one man in all the world who would help me and give me
a fighting chance if I came to you. 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.
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