"Oh, my God!" I exclaimed in an agony of apprehension, and a cold perspiration bedewed my forehead. That was one thing I never had expected Gertrude to discuss with me again, even in the abstract. I do not remember what I ate, except that the dinner was dainty and cool and exquisite. There was a dewy cup of something light and refreshing and Gertrude’s frock was charming, her eyes were bright and there was a touch of color in her cheeks. She did little talking herself at first, but pressed me to tell her all I could of Pendleton. I told her. I told her of his coming, of his air of penitence, of his returning to the offices of the insurance company and of his present effort to reëstablish a home for his children. The only suppressions I was conscious of were any references to Alicia or to my own somber emotions on the score of the children. Otherwise I was frank enough, Heaven knows, for it is hard for me not to be. To the very end Gertrude did not interrupt me. Only when I had done she made one crisp, incisive comment with a faint smile that was merely a lift of the upper lip. "The one thing I cannot understand, Ranny," she observed, "is your unreasonable skepticism." "You feel you could trust such a man implicitly?" I demanded. "Yes," was the firm reply. "If there is any one thing clear, it is that Jim Pendleton is genuinely penitent. Suppose that lost-memory story is all moonshine, as you and Dibdin seem to think. By coming back that way doesn’t the man really display more character than if it were true? He really shows that if he’s gone wrong he has the stamina to come right again—and that’s a good deal in this wicked world, Ranny." "I had not looked at it in that light," I muttered, disturbed. "I know you haven’t," she gave a triumphant laugh. "You couldn’t be calm on the subject. You really are an emotional, high-strung romantic, Ranny, and I don’t altogether blame you for being prejudiced. But any dispassionate person knowing the facts will tell you I am right." "It would be difficult for me to feel dispassionate on the subject," I returned doggedly. "Certainly it would," was her ready reply. "That’s why I am glad I captured you. Some friend had to show you your own interest." "My interest?" "Ranny," she cried in a voice charged with purpose if not with emotion,—with an intense, a vibrating resolution that impinged like a heavy weight upon my senses. "Ranny—don’t let’s be children—we are too old for that. Let bygones be bygones. I’ll humiliate myself before you. I—I love you, Ranny—" and her lips really quivered—"I have always loved you—will you marry me, Ranny?"