"On the contrary, Ned, I understand you perfectly. I don't think
I have ever understood you until now. Certainly never until now
could I be sure of what I hoped."

"Of what you hoped?" His voice sank as if in awe. "What?" he asked.

She looked away, and her persisting, yet ever-changing smile grew
slightly arch.

"You do not then intend to ask me to marry you?" she said.

"How could I?" It was an explosion almost of anger. "You yourself
suggested that it would be an insult; and so it would. It is to
take advantage of the position into which your foolish generosity
has betrayed you. Oh!" he clenched his fists and shook them a moment
at his sides.

"Very well," she said. "In that case I must ask you to marry me."

"You?" He was thunderstruck.

"What alternative do you leave me? You say that I have destroyed
my good name. You must provide me with a new one. At all costs I
must become an honest woman. Isn't that the phrase?"

"Don't!" he cried, and pain quivered in his voice. "Don't jest
upon it."

"My dear," she said, and now she held out both hands to him, "why
trouble yourself with things of no account, when the only thing