“Now, while I had, myself, no right to say whether or not you should read those papers, and while it was not my privilege to protect you against any distress they might bring to you, I still have a good deal of apprehension lest their reading shall needlessly wound you. I am going to make a suggestion, therefore, which I hope you will take in good part.” “I am ashamed of myself,” answered Evelyn, “for making you feel in that way. I am ashamed of what I said to you—though it was all true and necessary—and of the way in which I said it. I wish I could explain why I did it, why it hurt me so when you tried to conceal something from me. My outbreak has hurt you, and almost humiliated you, I reckon, and I don’t like to think of you being hurt and humiliated. It is good and generous of you to try, as you have done, to spare me. Believe me when I tell you that I feel it to have been so. I cannot explain, and it vexes me that I must not. Won’t you believe that?” “I believe anything you say, and everything you say. Indeed, it is more than belief that I feel when you tell me anything; it is a conviction of actual and positive knowledge. And now I very much want you to believe me when I say that it was not your ‘outbreak,’ as you call it, that hurt and humiliated me. It was only my consciousness of my own presumptuous impertinence that hurt. I have nothing to forgive in you; and my own fault I cannot forgive.” There were tears in Evelyn’s eyes as the strong and generous man who had been so careful of her said this, shielding her even now by taking all blame upon himself, just as he had shielded her long before by keeping his own person between her and the bullets that were raining about them. For the moment the old childlike simplicity came into her bearing. She advanced, took Kilgariff’s hand, and said:— “Let’s forget all about it, please. You have always been good to me.” Then the dignity came back, and, resuming her seat, she said:— “You were going to offer a suggestion. I should like to hear it. I am sure it is meant for my advantage.” “It is only this: I have a haunting fear that your father—” “He was not my father,” the young woman broke in, speaking the words quite as if they had borne no special significance. “But go on, please.” Kilgariff almost lost the thread of his thought in his astonishment at this sudden statement. He went on:—