When a man's a man

by Harold Bell Wright

For a little they walked in silence; then he asked, "Is it about Jim Reid's suspicion that you wanted to see me, Helen?"

"No, Larry, it isn't. It's about Kitty," she answered.

"Oh!"

"Kitty told me all about it, to-day," Helen continued. "The poor child is almost beside herself."

The man did not speak. Helen looked up at him almost as a mother might have done.

"Do you love her so very much, Larry? Tell me truly, do you?"

Patches could not—dared not—look at her.

"Tell me, Larry," she insisted gently. "I must know. Do you love Kitty as a man ought to love his wife?"

The man answered in a voice that was low and shaking with emotion. "Why should you ask me such a question? You know the answer. What right have you to force me to tell you that which you already know—that I love you—another man's wife?"

Helen's face went white. In her anxiety for Kitty she, had not foreseen this situation in which, by her question, she had placed herself.