She caught her breath. Her head was bowed, and her cheeks were very pale.
"All the while," she softly said, "away down in my heart was a hope I could not kill—a hope that we might meet again some day, Frank."
"And we have met!" he cried, exultantly. "When we have to part again, Elsie, you will not leave me as you did before? You will let me write to you? You will write to me occasionally?"
"Would it be right?"
She was looking straight into his eyes now, her face was near his, and the temptation was too great for his impulsive nature to resist. In a moment his arm was about her neck, and he had kissed her.
"Right!" he cried. "I do not know! Oh, we cannot always be right!"
She quickly released herself from his hold and sprang to her feet, the warm blood flushing her cheeks.
"We cannot always be right," she admitted; "but we should be right when we can. Frank, Inza Burrage befriended me. She thinks more of you than any one else in the wide world. Do not forget Inza!"
He lifted his hand to a round hole in his coat where a bullet from Leslie Gage's revolver had cut through, and beneath it he felt the ruined and shattered locket that held Inza's picture.