"Don't—don't take me yet, dear—I should be crying in another moment—I'm so—so beaten—and I want not to cry till I've told you, oh, so many things! Sit again and let us talk calmly first. Now why—why did you pretend this wretched thing?"
He faced her proudly, with the big, honest, clumsy dignity of a rugged man—and there was a loving quiet in his tones that touched her ineffably.
"Poor Bernal had told me his—his contretemps. The rest is simple. He is my brother. The last I remember of our mother is her straining me to her poor breast and saying, 'Oh, take care of little Bernal!'" Tears were glistening in his eyes.
"From the very freedom of the poor boy's talk about religious matters, it is the more urgent that his conduct be irreproachable. I could not bear that even you should think a shameful thing of him."
She looked at him with swimming eyes, yet held her tears in check through the very excitement of this splendid new admiration for him.
"But that was foolish—quixotic——"
"You will never know, little woman, what a brother's love is. Don't you remember years ago I told you that I would stand by Bernal, come what might. Did you think that was idle boasting?"
"But you were willing to have me suspect that of you!"
He spoke with a sad, sweet gentleness now, as one might speak who had long suffered hurts in secret.
"Dearest—dear little woman—I already knew that I had been unable to retain your love—God knows I tried—but in some way I had proved unworthy of it. I had come to believe—painful and humiliating though that belief was—that you could not think less of me— your words to-night proved that I was right—you would have gone away, even without this. But at least my poor brother might still seem good to you."