"I shall be so glad to be happy," she said, with a wistful little sigh, and I remembered that her life, so far, had given her little or no joy.
"Sweetheart," I said, "my life purpose henceforth shall be to give you happiness enough to make up for the sad years you have spent.
"You can easily do that, my dear," and the tenderness in her eyes fairly transfigured her. And then, with a pretty impetuous gesture, she hid her face on my shoulder.
"But it doesn't seem possible," I said, after a time, "that you can really love me when you've known me but a few days."
"That doesn't count in a love like ours," said Janet, speaking almost solemnly. "It is not the kind that requires time to grow."
"No," I agreed, "it was born full grown. I always told Laura that when I fell in love it would be at first sight, and it was. The marvellous part, dear, is that you care, too."
"Care!" she exclaimed, and the depths of love in her eyes gave me a hint of her emotional nature; "but," she went on, "this is all wrong. You must not talk to me like this, and I must not listen to it. I am under suspicion of having committed a crime. Surely you cannot love me until I am freed from that."
"But you are not guilty?"
I asked the question not because of any doubt in my own mind, but because I wanted for once to hear her own statement of her innocence.
"That I shall not tell you," she said, and her eyes took on a faraway, inscrutable look, as of a sphinx; "that you must find out for yourself. Or rather, no, I don't want you to find out. I want it always to remain a mystery."