“Afraid of me?”
“Yes, afraid of everybody. I was in the room behind Ellen McCormick when she asked you—that question; and when you answered as you did, I was like stone. I was amazed and didn’t believe, for I was certain that after what had happened on the ship you despised me, and only through a peculiar sense of honor were making the search for me. Not until two days later, when your letters came to Ellen McCormick, and we read them—”
“You opened both?”
“Of course. One was to be read immediately, the other when I was found—and I had found myself. Maybe it wasn’t exactly fair, but you couldn’t expect two women to resist a temptation like that. And—I wanted to know.”
She did not lower her eyes or turn her head aside as she made the confession. Her gaze met Alan’s with beautiful steadiness.
“And then I believed. I knew, because of what you said in that letter, that you were the one man in all the world who would help me and give me a fighting chance if I came to you. But it has taken all my courage—and in the end you will drive me away—”
Again he looked upon the miracle of tears in wide-open, unfaltering eyes, tears which she did not brush away, but through which, in a moment, she smiled at him as no woman had ever smiled at him before. And with the tears there seemed to possess her a pride which lifted her above all confusion, a living spirit of will and courage and womanhood that broke away the dark clouds of suspicion and fear that had gathered in his mind. He tried to speak, and his lips were thick.
“You have come—because you know I love you, and you—”
“Because, from the beginning, it must have been a great faith in you that inspired me, Alan Holt.”
“There must have been more than that,” he persisted. “Some other reason.”