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Rh "I do believe that, and yet …" She lowered her head and began to trace a meaningless pattern on the cloth before she resumed. "You've given me to understand I'm responsible for your sudden awakening, that it's because of a regard conceived for me you're so anxious to become an honest man. Suppose … suppose you were to find out … you'd been mistaken in me?"

"That isn't possible," he objected promptly.

She smiled upon him wistfully—and leniently from her remote coign of superior intuitive knowledge of human nature.

"But if it were—?"

"Then—I think," he said soberly—"I think I'd feel as though there were nothing but emptiness beneath my feet!"

"And you'd backslide—?"

"How can I tell?" he expostulated. "It's not a fair question. I don't know what I'd do, but I do know it would need something damnable to shake my faith in you!"

"You think so now," she said tolerantly. "But if appearances were against me—"

"They'd have to be black!"

"If you found I had deceived you—?"

"Miss Shannon!" He threw an arm across the table and suddenly imprisoned her hand. "There's no use beating about the bush. You've got to know—"

She drew back suddenly with a frightened look and a monosyllable of sharp protest: "No!"

"But you must listen to me. I want you to understand.