"Boasted! Revenge at a beating! Grace, explain yourself. You are accusing me of something. What is it? Boasting that I kissed you?" "That," she said, looking defiantly into my face, while two red spots came to her cheeks. "That, and threatening my brother, after your defeat at his hands, with making your mastery complete." "The damnable scoundrel!" I said explosively. "Did he tell you that lie? Did he say that he defeated me?" "I saw him getting the best of you," she said, with a little doubt in her face. "Because I did not want to hurt your brother. Did you turn in an alarm?" "Yes." "Before the firemen came your brother had got away from me and ran. Then I, remaining to extinguish the fire, was arrested for causing it." "Arrested?" Her eyes opened in wonder and alarm. "And the best proof, Miss Morton," I said grimly, "that I am too much of a man to boast about a woman, is that I served five years in Trenton prison rather than call upon you to clear me." "You did? Jack!" Tears started to her eyes, but I went on relentlessly: "The case was well outlined to me by your brother on the morning after my arrest. He had sent the policeman into the house after me, and having succeeded so far, called upon me in jail to carry it further. I was to plead guilty so as not to attract attention to him. The evidence was against me. I was caught adding fuel to the fire, and with my face and clothing smeared with oil. My only chance was that the girl that I loved would come forward. She did not, and I could not ask her. No doubt, your brother told you that lie to kill any interest or curiosity you may have felt concerning me." For a moment I thought she was going to faint. She paled to the tips of her small ears, staggered back, and leaned against the bulkhead, her lips parted and her eyes staring at me in wonder and horror. "Why--why," she gasped, "why did you not tell me?" "To ask that you save me at your brother's expense?" I answered. "To place you on the stand, where the lawyers could bait you? To compromise you? To shield myself behind a woman's good name? No, Miss Morton, whatever I may have become under the influence of stripes and confinement, I was, at that time, a graduate of Annapolis--an officer and a gentleman." She shrank away from me and seemed about to fall. Then, having spoken my mind, the bitterness left me, and I would have gone back to prison could I have unsaid my words. The old love replaced the hate, and I reached forward, just to touch her hand, if I might; but she drew it away. "Don't," she whispered weakly. "Don't. I didn't know; I didn't know." She was not speaking to me, and for a moment I hesitated. Then I forcibly turned her face to mine and looked into her eyes, swimming with tears. "It's all right, Grace," I said huskily. "Never mind." "I would have come," she said, in a firmer voice, "but I did not--"