evil, but these men."

"You're an angel to feel like that and speak like that!" exclaimed Smith.
"I don't deserve your goodness, but I appreciate it. I'd like to take
your hand and kiss it when I thank you, but I won't, because you're alone
with me, under my protection. To save me from trouble you've risked
danger and put yourself in my power. I may be bad in some ways--most men
are, or would be in women's eyes if women saw them as they are; but I'm
not a brute. The worst I've ever done is to try to pay back a great
injury, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Do you blame me for
that?"

"I have no right--I don't know what the injury was," said the girl; and,
hesitating a little, "still--I don't think _I_ could find happiness in
revenge."

"I could, or anyhow, satisfaction: I confess that. About 'happiness,' I
don't know much. But you could teach me."

"I?"

"Yes. Do you believe there can be such a thing as love at first sight?"

"I can't tell. Books say so. Perhaps----"

"There's no 'perhaps.' I've found that out to-night. I believe love that
comes at sight must be the only real love--a sort of electric call from
soul to soul. The thing that's happened is just this: I've met the one
woman--my help-mate. If I come out of this trouble, and can ask a girl
like you to give herself to me, will you do it?"