"Oh, is that all?" Tom laughed. "I see, you've stubbed your toe and don't want to live any more!"

"I mean it!" she broke in desperately.

"Good joke!" he cried again, laughing. "You don't want to live any more!

Twenty years old and every line of your graceful, young form quivering with the joy of life--you--you don't want to live! That's great!"

The girl lifted her dimmed eyes, looked at him a moment, and spoke the thought that had poisoned her soul--spoke it in hard, bitter accents with a touch of self-loathing:

"I've just learned that my birth is shadowed by disgrace!"

"Well, what have you to do with that?" he asked quickly. "Your whole being shines with truth and purity. What's an accident of birth? You couldn't choose your parents, could you? You're a nameless orphan and my father is the attorney of an old fool guardian who lives somewhere in Europe. All right! The worst thing your worst enemy could say is that you're a child of love--a great love that leaped all bounds and defied the law--a love that was madness and staked all life on the issue! That means you're a child of the G.o.ds. Some of the greatest men and women of the world were born like that. Your own eyes are clear. There's no cloud on your beautiful soul----"

Tom paused and Helen lifted her face in rapt attention. The boy suddenly leaped to his feet, turned away and spoke in ecstatic whispers:

"Good Lord--listen at me--why--I'm making love--great Scott--I'm in love!

The big thing has happened--to me--to me! I feel the thrill of it--the thing that transforms the world--why--it's like getting religion!"

He strode back and forth in a frenzy of absurd happiness.

Helen, smiling through her tears, asked:

"What are you saying? What are you talking about?"

With a cry of joy he was at her side, her hand tight gripped in his:

"Why, that I'm in love, my own--that I love you, my glorious little girl! I didn't realize it until I saw just now the tears in your eyes and felt the pain of it. Every day these past weeks you've been stealing into my heart until now you're my very life! What hurts you hurts me--your joys are mine--your sorrows are mine!"

Laughing in spite of herself, Helen cried:

"You--don't realize what you're saying!"

"No--but I'm beginning to!" he answered with a boyish smile. "And it goes to my head like wine--I'm mad with its joy! I tell you I love you--I love you! and you love me--you do love me?"

The girl struggled, set her lips grimly and said fiercely:

"No--and I never shall!"

"You don't mean it?"

"I do!"

"You--you--don't love another?"

"No--no!"

"Then you _do_ love me!" he cried triumphantly. "You've just _got_ to love me! I won't take any other answer! Look into my eyes!"

She turned resolutely away and he took both hands drawing her back until their eyes met.

"Your lips say no," he went on, "but your tears, your voice, the tremor of your hand and the tenderness of your eyes say yes!"

Helen shook her head:

"No--no--no!"

But the last "no" grew feebler than the first and he pressed her hand with cruel pleading:

"Yes--yes--yes--say it, dear--please--just once."

Helen looked at him and then with a cry of joy that was resistless said:

"G.o.d forgive me! I can't help it--yes, yes, yes, I love you--I love you!"

Tom s.n.a.t.c.hed her to his heart and held her in perfect surrender. She suddenly drew her arms from his neck, crying in dismay:

"No--no--I don't love you!"

The boy looked at her with a start and she went on quickly:

"I didn't mean to say it--I meant to say--I hate you!"

With a cry of pain she threw herself into his arms, clasping his neck and held him close.

His hand gently stroked the brown hair while he laughed:

"Well, if that's the way you hate--keep it up!"

With an effort she drew back:

"But I mustn't----"

"There!" he said, tenderly drawing her close again. "It's all right. It's no use to struggle. You're mine--mine, I tell you!"

With a determined effort she freed herself:

"It's no use, dear, our love is impossible."

"Nonsense!"

"But you don't realize that my birth is shadowed by disgrace!"

"I don't believe it--I wouldn't believe it if an angel said it. Who dares to say such a thing?"

"Your father!"

"My father?" he repeated in a whisper.

"He has always known the truth and now that I am of age he has told me----"