“Yes, I knew that,” answered Clare, who was secretly admiring the straightforward, unhesitating manner in which he told his tale. No stuttering or beating about the bush. He had something to say, and he said it in the most natural and concise manner possible. And she liked that.
“I’m glad. That makes it easier,” he returned.
“But,” she went on, “are you sure you have no lingering regrets on that score? Not even a little one deep down in your heart?”
“Not the very ghost of one. I am a vindictive animal, I suppose, but that sort of treatment leaves no room for lingering regrets, though it does for lingering resentment. But even of that there is none left now. You will never turn against me, darling?”
“Never,” she answered decisively and without hesitation, although startled by the sudden directness of the question.
“No matter what I did? Even to a repetition of the incident I have been telling you?”
“Not even then. No—nothing could ever make me turn from you,” she repeated, with a sudden burst of passion.
It was a strange contrast, these two walking there, talking, thinking of love. Down by a stagnant water-hole in the nearly dry river-bed, the horses and mules were grazing, under an armed guard, and yonder the gleam of rifles where vedettes were posted. Outside and within the stockade men lounged and chatted, all ready to fly to arms at the first alarm.
So to these two it was as an oasis—this peace of a great happiness. They had found it between the lurid storms of war, and good—very good—was it for them that they had.