lock you up where no one but me can see you, and that doesn't seem very
practical in this day and generation! But I don't see any reason--if
you love me--why you should _let_ them. You have certainly got to tell
me, Sylvia."

"I will not, if you speak to me that way," she flashed back. "Why should
I? You wouldn't tell me all the foolish things you ever did!"

"Yes, Sylvia, I will," he said gravely, "as far as I can without
incriminating anybody else--no man has a right to kiss--or do more than
that--and tell, in such a way as to betray any woman--no matter what sort
she is. Some of the things I've done wouldn't be pleasant, either to say
or to hear; for a man who is as hopeless as I was before you came to us
is often weak enough to be perilously near being wicked. But if you wish
to be told, you have every right to. And so have I a right to an answer
to my question. No one knows better than I do that I'm not worthy of you
in any way. But you must think I am or you wouldn't marry me, and if
you're going to be my wife, you've got to help me to keep you--as sacred
to me as you are now. Shall I tell first, or will you? A church is a
wonderful place for a confession, you know, and it would be much better
to have it behind us."

"You needn't tell at all," she said, lifting her face and showing as she
did so the tears rolling down her cheeks. "_Weak_! You're as strong as
steel! If all men were like you, there wouldn't be anything for me to
tell either. But they're not. The night before I telegraphed you, an old
friend brought me home after a dinner and theatre party. We had all had
an awfully gay time, and--well, I think it was a little _too_ gay. This
man wanted to marry me long ago, and I think, perhaps, I would have
accepted him once--if he'd--had any money. But he didn't then--he's made