"What did she mean, Ben," said Damaris at last, "by that love which understanding can forgive even—even her trouble?"
And to Ben Kelham came the tweeny's seventh-heaven glimpse of the understanding of real love.
He rose and swept Damaris, a-thrill at the mastery, into his arms, where he held her as he might have held a child.
"That, dear,"—and he spoke choosing the simplest words, just because he knew no others, "that means that if you said you loved me, and I—if I ever found you in a—how shall I put it?—in—no matter how compromising a situation—that I should love you just the same, because I should know that, although to all appearances you—you might have sinned, yet the real you, the pure, honourable, perfect woman in you, could not show the smallest stain. Do you understand?"
"Almost," whispered the girl, as she lay still in the arms that held her as a child.
"You've got to understand. Listen! It may sound brutal, but you've got to understand my love for you. Supposing you disappeared, as Englishwomen do sometimes in the East. Supposing I searched, and found you, and you—you were—you were like the little tweeny girl. What should I do? Why, Damaris, unless you came to me and confessed to sin, I'd marry you, loving you, understanding you, without asking any questions."
"Without asking any explanation?"
"Yes, dear. Yes. Because I love you——"
"And you would forgive me?"
"But, dear, there wouldn't be any need for forgiveness; the real, pure you would not have done anything wrong."