She had been
betrayed by her strange imagination and suddenly awakened passion; she
had followed blindly where he had led, but when catastrophe had
threatened one who had been part of her former life--familiar with all
that was real to her--how readily the untamed instinct had reverted to
its own!
And he--Truedale comforted himself--he had come back to _his_ own, and
his own had made its claim upon him. Why should he not have his second
chance? He wanted love--not friendship; he wanted--Lynda! All else faded
and Lynda, the new Lynda--Lynda with the hair that had learned to curl,
the girl with the pretty white shoulders and sweet, kind eyes--stood
pleadingly close in the shabby old room and demanded recognition. "She
thinks," and here Truedale covered his eyes, "that I am--as I was when I
began my life--here! What would she say--if she knew? She, God bless
her, is not like others. Faithful, pure, she could not forgive the
_truth_!"
Truedale, thinking so of Lynda Kendall, owned to his best self that
because the woman who now filled his life held to her high ideals--would
never lower them--he could honour and reverence her. If she, like him,
could change, and accept selfishly that which she would scorn in
another, she would not be the splendid creature she was. And
yet--without conceit or vanity--Truedale believed that Lynda felt for
him what he felt for her.
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