“You overrate the matter altogether, Bertha.  The man shot me by mistake.  The fellow he took me for richly deserved shooting.  When he found it was a mistake, the poor fellow was bitterly sorry for it.  Surely, there was nothing more to be said about it.”

The girl sat silent for some time.

“Well, it is all cleared up now,” she said at last.  “There is no reason why we should not be friends as of old.”

“None whatever,” he said.  “There has been only—­” and he stopped short.

“Only what, Frank?”

“Nothing,” he said.  “We will be just as we were, Bertha.  I will try and be the good elder brother, and scold you and look after you, and warn you, if it should be necessary, until you get under other guidance.”

“It will be some time,” she said, quietly, “before that happens.  I have had a sharp lesson.”

“And did you really care for him much, Bertha?”

“I don’t think that I really cared for him at all,” she said.  “That is not the lesson that I was thinking of.”

He saw the colour mount into her cheeks as she twisted the handkerchief she held into a knot.  Then, turning to him, she said: 

“Frank, are you never going to give me a chance again?”

He could not misunderstand her.

“Do you mean—­can you mean, Bertha?” he said, in a low tone.  “Do you mean that if I ask you the same question again you will give me a different answer?”

“I did not know then,” she said.  “I had never thought of it.  You took me altogether by surprise, and what I said I thought was true.  Afterwards I knew that I had been mistaken.  I hoped that you would ask me again, but you did not, and I soon felt that you never would.  You tried hard to be as you were before, but you were not the same, and I was not the same.  Then I did not seem to care.  There were three men who wanted me.  I did not care much which it was, but I would not have anyone say that I had married for position—­I hated the idea of that—­and so I would have taken the third.  He was bright and pleasant, and all that sort of thing, and I thought that I could be happy with him, until George Lechmere opened my eyes.  Then, of course, that was over; but his story showed me still more what a fool I had been, what a heart I had thrown away, and I said, ’I will at least make an effort to undo the past.  I will not let my chance of happiness go away from me merely from false pride.  If he loves me still he will forgive me.  If not, at least I shall not, all through my life, feel that I might have made it different could I have brought myself to speak a word.’”

“I love you as much as ever,” Frank said, taking her hand.  “I love you more for speaking as you have.  I can hardly believe my happiness.  Can it be that you really love me, Bertha?”

“I think I have proved it, Frank.  I do love you.  I have known it for some time, but it seemed all too late.  It was a grief rather than a pleasure.  Every time you came it was a pain to me, for I felt that I had lost you; and it was only when I learned, two days ago, how you could forgive, and that at the same time I could free myself from the chain I had allowed to be wound round me, and which I don’t think I could otherwise have broken, that I made up my mind that it should not be my fault if things were not put right between us.