“You have something to tell me––your voice––your eyes––”
“Why, Miss Chuckie!” he remonstrated, “you’re not going to break down now. You see how Jenny takes it. There’s nothing to fear.”
“Oh, but, Tom!” she panted, “you––you don’t understand! you don’t know! It’s not merely the danger! It’s the dreadful thought that if you––if you should not––come back––and I hadn’t told you!”
“Told me?” he echoed in hushed wonderment as her anguished soul looked out at him through her wide eyes and he sensed the first vague foreshadowing of the truth. “You have something to tell me––your voice!––your eyes!––”
“You see it! You know me!” she gasped, and she flung herself into his arms. Straining herself to him in half frantic ecstasy, she murmured in a broken whisper: “Yes! I am––am Belle! It is wicked and selfish to tell you; but to have you go down there without first––I could not bear it! Yet I––I shall not drag you down––disgrace you. Never that! I’ll go away!... Oh, Tom! dear Tom!”
He had stood dumfounded by the revelation of her identity. At first he could not speak; hardly could he think. His eyes stared into hers with a dazed look. But before she could finish her impassioned declaration of self-abnegation he roused from his bewilderment, 288 and his great arms closed about her quivering body. He crushed her to him and pressed his lips upon her white forehead.
“Belle!––poor little Belle!... But why? Tell me why? All this time, and you never showed by a single word or look!”
“I did!” she sought to defend herself from the tender reproach. “I did, but I––I was afraid to tell.”
“Afraid?”