Page:Frank Packard - Greater Love Hath No Man.djvu/153

 came up and—something she had never done before—held out her hand.

Impulsively, Varge stretched out his own, then dropped it to his side—and flushed.

"I have been working," he said, and lifted his hand for her inspection. "It is not clean enough for you to take."

For a moment she did not speak and her eyes, suddenly grown serious, searched his face.

"I understand," she said, her voice low. "But if I choose to believe that it—that it is clean?"

"I think it would be very like you," Varge said slowly. "You are very kind and good and—and I am very grateful, but—"

"We were talking about you last night, Varge," she said simply, her eyes on the toe of her shoe as she patted down a little mound of earth. "Doctor Kreelmar and I, Doctor Kreelmar believes in you, and I—I think in the last week I have come to know you better than he does—I believe in you, too." She raised her eyes quickly to his. "Varge, won't you give me your hand and tell me we are right, and let us help you to clear yourself, and take us as true, staunch friends?"

Something in Varge's throat seemed to choke him, and he averted his head. Suddenly, dearer than life or freedom, the one thing in all the world that could matter now, it seemed, would be her belief in him. Just her belief—that was all. Temptation as it had never come before, as the horror of the prison life had never tempted him, surged upon him, almost unmanning him for the moment, seeking literally to wrench the secret from his