Walter Grant leaned forward.
"Look in my eyes, Avery. Do you see any aversion?"
Avery forced herself to look. What she saw covered her face with a hot blush.
"Did you think my love such a poor and superficial thing, Avery," he said sternly, "that it must vanish because a blemish came on your fairness? Do you think that would change me? Was your own love for me so slight?"
"No—no," she sobbed. "I have loved you every moment of my life, Walter. Oh, don't look at me so sternly."
"If you had even told me," he said. "You said I was never to try to look on your face again—and they told me you had gone away. You sent me back my ring."
"I kept the old one," she interrupted, holding out her hand, "the first one you ever gave me—do you remember, Walter? When we were boy and girl."
"You robbed me of all that made life worth while, Avery. Do you wonder that I've been a bitter man?"
"I was wrong—I was wrong," she sobbed. "I should have believed in you. But don't you think I've paid, too? Forgive me, Walter—it's too late to atone—but forgive me."
"Is it too late?" he asked gravely.