Chapter XXVI. In Which a Score is Settled - Page 2

saying!"

"Yes, I do." She returned his look of shocked horror with half-hearted defiance. "You must have known who I am. Fraser knew, and he must have told you. You knew I had followed the mining camps, you knew I had lived by my wits. You must have known what people thought of me. I cast my lot in with the people of this country, and I had to match my wits with those of every man I met. Sometimes I won, sometimes I did not. You know the North."

"I didn't know," he said, slowly. "I never thought--I wouldn't allow myself to think--"

"Why not? It is nothing to you. You have lived, and so have I. I made mistakes--what girl doesn't who has to fight her way alone? But my past is my own; it concerns nobody but me." She saw the change in his face, and her reckless spirit rose. "Oh, I've shocked you! You think all women should be like Miss Wayland. Have you ever stopped to think that even you are not the same man you were when you came fresh from college? You know the world now; you have tasted its wickedness. Would you change your knowledge for your earlier innocence? You know you would not, and you have no right to judge me by a separate code. What difference does it make who I am or what I have done? I didn't ask your record when I gave you the chance to win Miss Wayland, and neither you nor she have any right to challenge mine."

"I agree with you in that."

"I came away from the mining camps because of wagging tongues--because I was forever misjudged. Whatever I may have been, I have at least played fair with that girl; it hurts me now to be accused by her. I saw your love for her, and I never tried to rob her. Oh, don't look as if I couldn't have done differently if I had tried. I could have injured her very easily if I had been the sort she thinks me. But I helped you in every way I could. I made sacrifices, I did things she would never have done."

She stopped on the verge of tears. Boyd felt the justice of her words. He could not forget the unselfish devotion and loyalty she had shown throughout his long struggle. For the hundredth time there came to him the memory of her services in the matter of Hilliard's loan, and the thought caused him unspeakable distress.

"Why--did you do all this?" he asked.

"Don't you know?" Cherry gazed at him with a faint smile.

Then, for the first time, the whole truth burst upon him. The surprise of it almost deprived him of speech, and he stammered:

"No, I--I--" Then he fell silent.

"What little I did, I did because I love you," said the girl, in a tired voice. "You may as well know, for it makes no difference now."

"I--I am sorry," he said, gripped by a strong emotion that made him go hot and cold. "I have been a fool."

"No,