THE LOVE OF A MAN

For a moment the girl hesitated, her ungloved hands clenched on her
breast, her bloodless face tense with a strange grief, as she saw the
outstretched arms of the man whom her treachery had almost lured to his
death. Then, slowly, she approached, and once more Howland held her
hands clasped to him and gazed questioningly down into the wild eyes
that stared into his own.

"Why did you run away from me?" were the first words that he spoke. They
came from him gently, as if he had known her for a long time. In them
there was no tone of bitterness; in the warmth of his gray eyes there
was none of the denunciation which she might have expected. He repeated
the question, bending his head until he felt the soft touch of her hair
on his lips. "Why did you run away from me?"

She drew away from him, her eyes searching his face.

"I lied to you," she breathed, her words coming to him in a whisper. "I
lied--"

The words caught in her throat. He saw her struggling to control
herself, to stop the quivering of her lip, the tremble in her voice. In
another moment she had broken down, and with a low, sobbing cry sank in
a chair beside the table and buried her head in her arms. As Howland saw
the convulsive trembling of her shoulders, his soul was flooded with a
strange joy--not at this sight of her grief, but at the knowledge that
she was sorry for what she had done. Softly he approached. The girl's