"Do you forgive me, Bessy?"
She pressed her lips to his forehead and said hastily, and then falteringly, as if afraid of her impulse:—
"Yes. Yes."
"And you will still be mother to the child?"
"HER child?"
"No dear, not hers, but MINE!"
She started, cried a little, and then putting her arms around him, said: "Yes."
And as there was but one way of fulfilling that sacred promise, they were married in the autumn.