She
moved suddenly into a moonbeam that streamed through a broken shingle
in the roof. Her face was like white marble. In its terrified lines
and angles he read nothing but the imprint of past weakness where he
should have seen only pleading purity--the purity of a child cowed and
awed by the object of a love so powerful, so self-sacrificing that she
made no attempt to understand it. She had always felt her inferiority
to others, and now that she loved her ideal of superiority she seemed
to expect ill-treatment--even contempt--at his hands.
He looked away from her. The begrimed handle of the bellows creaked
and swung as he leaned on it. He turned suddenly and impulsively
grasped her hands.
"You are a good girl," he cried; "you have been the best friend I ever
had. If I don't treat you better, it is on account of my awful nature.
I can't control it when I think of that villain."
"He _has_ treated you very badly," she said, slowly, in a voice that
faltered.
"Where did you meet him and when?" he asked, under his breath. "God
knows I thought you were done with him.
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