discovery.

The beauty of her face, her eyes, her hair--the wonder of her
presence six hundred miles from civilization--had held him
spellbound. He had seen only the deep lustre and the wonderful
blue of her eyes. Now he saw that those eyes, exquisite in their
loveliness, were haunted by something which she was struggling to
fight back--a questing, hunted look that burned there steadily,
and of which he was not the cause. A deep-seated grief, a terror
far back, shone through the forced calmness with which she was
speaking to him. He knew that she was fighting with herself, that
the nervously twitching fingers at her breast told more than her
lips had confessed. He stepped nearer to her and held out a hand,
and when he spoke his voice was vibrant with the thing that made
men respect him and women have faith in him.

"Tell me--what you started to say," he entreated quietly. "This is
your hiding-place, and you thought--what? I think that I can
guess. You thought that I was some one else, whom you have reason
to fear."

She did not answer. It was as if she had not yet completely
measured him. Her eyes told him that. They were not looking AT
him, but INTO him. And they were softly beautiful as wood violets.
He found himself looking steadily into them--close, so close that
he could have reached out and touched her. Slowly there came over
them a filmy softness. And then, marvellously, he saw the tears
gathering, as dew might gather over the sweet petals of a flower.
And still for a moment she did not speak. There came a little
quiver at her throat, and she caught herself with a quick, soft