"Then, if you think those people have been wronged, you are not on our
side, Mr. Brant?"

What to an older and more worldly man would have seemed, and probably
was, only a playful reproach, struck Clarence deeply, and brought his
pent-up feelings to his lips.

"YOU have never wronged them. You couldn't do it; it isn't in your
nature. I am on YOUR side, and for you and yours always, Mrs. Peyton.
From the first time I saw you on the plains, when I was brought, a
ragged boy, before you by your husband, I think I would gladly have
laid down my life for you. I don't mind telling you now that I was even
jealous of poor Susy, so anxious was I for the smallest share in your
thoughts, if only for a moment. You could have done anything with me you
wished, and I should have been happy,--far happier than I have been ever
since. I tell you this, Mrs. Peyton, now, because you have just doubted
if I might be 'on your side,' but I have been longing to tell it all to
you before, and it is that I am ready to do anything you want,--all you
want,--to be on YOUR SIDE and at YOUR SIDE, now and forever."

He was so earnest and hearty, and above all so appallingly and
blissfully happy, in this relief of his feelings, smiling as if it were
the most natural thing in the world, and so absurdly unconscious of his
twenty-two years, his little brown curling mustache, the fire in
his wistful, yearning eyes, and, above all, of his clasped hands and
lover-like attitude, that Mrs. Peyton--at first rigid as stone, then
suffused to the eyes--cast a hasty glance round the apartment, put her
handkerchief to her face, and laughed like a girl.

At which Clarence, by no means discomposed, but rather accepting her