There was nothing of love or of sex in the action. She was simply a heartbroken child seeking refuge in the strength of some one older and stronger than she. Gavin realized it, and he held her to him and comforted her as though she had been his little sister. Presently the passion of convulsive weeping passed, leaving her broken and exhausted. Gavin knew the girl's powers of mental resistance were no longer strong enough to overcome her need for a comforter to whom she could unburden her soul of its miserable perplexities. She had drawn back from his embrace but she still sat close to him, her hands in his, pathetically eager for his sympathy and aid. The psychological moment had come and Gavin Brice knew it. Loathing himself for the role he must play and vowing solemnly to his own heart that she should never be allowed to suffer for any revelation she might make, he said with a gentle insistence, "Tell me." CHAPTER VII SECRETS There was a short silence. Brice looked anxiously through the gathering darkness at the dimly seen face so near to his own. He could not guess, for the life of him, whether the girl was silent because she refused to tell him what he sought so eagerly to know, or whether she was still fighting to control her voice. As he sat gazing down at her, there was something so tiny, so fragile, so helplessly trustful about her, that it went straight to the man's heart. He had played and schemed and risked life itself for this crucial hour, for this hour when he should have swept aside the girl's possible suspicions and enlisted her complete sympathy for himself and could make her trust him and feel keen remorse for the treatment he had received. Yes--he had achieved all this. And he had done infinitely more. He had awakened in her heart a sense of loneliness and of need for some one in whom she might confide. He had done all this, had Gavin Brice. And, though he was not a vain man, yet he knew he had done it cleverly. But, somehow--even as he waited to see if the hour for full confidences were indeed ripe--he was not able to feel the thrill of exultation which should belong to the winner of a hard-fought duel. Instead, to his amazement, he was aware of a growing sense of shame, of disgust at having used such weapons against any woman,--especially against this girl whose whiteness of soul and of purpose he could no longer doubt. Then, through the silence and above the soft lap-lap-lap of water against the idly drifting boat's side, Claire drew a deep breath. She threw back her drooping shoulders and sat up, facing the man. And in the dusk, Gavin could see the flash of resolve in her great eyes.