“You did not come to meet me,” she sobbed.  “You made me come all the way, to forgive you.  Cruel, cruel!”

John held the girl in his arms, but he did not dare to kiss her, and his self-denial soon brought its reward.  He had not expected that she would come a beggar to him.  The most he had dared to hope was that she would listen to his prayer for forgiveness.  With all his worldly wisdom John had not learned the fact that inconstancy does not destroy love in the one who suffers by reason of it; nor did he know of the exquisite pain-touched happiness which comes to a gentle, passionate heart such as Dorothy’s from the mere act of forgiving.

“Is it possible you can forgive me for the miserable lies I have uttered?” asked John, almost unconscious of the words he was speaking.  “Is it possible you can forgive me for uttering those lies, Dorothy?” he repeated.

She laid her head upon his breast, and softly passing her hand over the lace of his doublet, whispered:—­

“If I could believe they were lies, I could easily forgive you,” she answered between low sobs and soft sighs.  Though she was a woman, the sweet essence of childhood was in her heart.

“But you cannot believe me, even when I tell you that I spoke not the truth,” answered John, with growing faith in his system of passive repentance.  Again came the sighs, and a few struggling, childish sobs.

“It is easy for us to believe that which we long to believe,” she said.  Then she turned her face upward to him, and John’s reward was altogether disproportioned to the self-denial he had exercised a few minutes before.  She rewarded him far beyond his deserts; and after a pause she said mischievously:—­

“You told me that you were a bold man with women, and I know that at least that part of what you said was untrue, for you are a bashful man, John, you are downright bashful.  It is I who have been bold.  You were too timid to woo me, and I so longed for you that I—­I—­was not timid.”

“For God’s sake, Dorothy, I beg you to have pity and to make no jest of me.  Your kindness almost kills me, and your ridicule—­”

“There, there, John,” whispered the girl, “I will never again make a jest of you if it gives you pain.  Tell me, John, tell me truly, was it all false—­that which you told me about the other women?”

There had been more truth in John’s bragging than he cared to confess.  He feared and loathed a lie; so he said evasively, but with perfect truth:—­

“You must know, my goddess.  If you do not know without the telling that I love you with all my being; if you do not know that there is for me and ever will be no woman but you in all the world; if you do not know that you have stolen my soul and that I live only in your presence, all that I can say will avail nothing toward convincing you.  I am almost crazed with love for you, and with pain and torture.  For the love of God let me leave you that I may hide my face.”