Her eyes had not quitted my face while I spoke, though they were glistening; her mouth had weakened more than once, and a piteous little "Oh!" would come from her lips. When I had finished she looked away from me, dropping her eyes to the floor, leaning forward intently, her hands shut between her knees. For a long time she remained so, forgetting me. But at last I could hear her breathe and could see the increasing rise and fall of it, so that I feared a crisis. But none came. Again she mastered herself and even managed a smile for me, though it was a poor thing. "I've told you all, Miss Kate." "Yes--I'm unfair, but you have a right to know. I found that picture--your picture, when they brought him in. His hands were clenched about it. They said he had pleaded to hold it and made them promise not to take it from him--ever. I was left alone, and I dared to take it, just for a moment. Something in the design of the cover puzzled me. I had meant to put it right back, and after I had looked at it there was only one thing to do--to put it back." "They said you found your own picture, or I might have suspected." "They had reason to say it--I never told." "Of course you never told, Miss Kate!" I seemed to learn a great deal of her from that. She had carried her wound secretly through all those years. "Poor Little Miss!" I said in spite of myself, and at this quite unexpectedly there befell what I had hoped we might both be spared. I might not soothe her as I would have wished, so I busied myself in the next room until she called to me. She was putting what touches she could to her eyes with a small and sadly bedraggled handkerchief. "There is a better reason for telling no one now," she said, "so we must destroy this. Mother might see it." My grate contained its summer accumulation of waste paper. She laid the picture on this and I lighted the pyre. "Your mother will see your eyes," I said. "She has seen them so before." And she gave me her hand, which I kissed. "Poor Little Miss!" I said, still holding it. "Not poor now--you have given me back so much. I can believe again--I can believe almost as much as Jim." But I released her hand. Though her eyes had not quitted mine, their look was one of utter friendliness. CHAPTER XXVII HOW A TRUCE WAS TROUBLESOME