"And now, when you've been so brave, so true--for me to accuse you of--Oh, can you _ever_ forgive me?
But you see, knowing that you _did_ care for her, it did look--" She choked into silence, and turned away her head.
He glanced at her tenderly, mournfully.
"Yes," he said, after a minute, in a low voice.

"I can see how it did look; and so I'm going to tell you now something I had meant never to tell you.

There really couldn't have been anything in that, you see, for I found out long ago that it was gone--whatever love there had been for--Billy." "But your--tiger skin!" "Oh, yes, I thought it was alive," smiled Arkwright, sadly, "when I asked you to help me fight it.

But one day, very suddenly, I discovered that it was nothing but a dead skin of dreams and memories.

But I made another discovery, too.