"Mr. Van Berg," she said a few moments later "can you give me a little of your valuable time to-day?"
"All of it," he said promptly.
"Thanks. I shall take, then, all I want. Come with me to yonder shady rustic seat, for I long to be out of doors again; and you have learned to hobble so gracefully and deftly that you can manage the journey, I'm sure."
He accompanied her, wondering a little at her words and manner. When they had reached the seclusion she sought her manner changed, and she became very grave and earnest, for she felt that it might be the crisis moment of two lives, and she was not one who could self-complacently and confidently seek to shape human destiny.
"Mr. Van Berg," she said, "I shall not use any tedious circumlocution, for your time is precious this morning; more so than you think at this moment. Nor shall I try to entrap you by guile and feminine diplomacy; but you made me a very explicit pledge when I found you last Tuesday morning."
"Yes, Jennie Burton, I am yours, body and soul."
"But how about your heart, Mr. Van Berg?"
"My heart overflows with gratitude to you," he said promptly, but with rising color; "and as I said when you rescued me, so now I vow again, I dedicate my life to you. I do not ask you to forget the past all at once—I do not ask you to forget it at all—but only to let me aid you in taking the bitterness out of those memories that now are destroying as sweet and beneficent a life as God ever gave. I have suspected that you had some unselfish guile in that last promise you obtained from me, but I shall be loyal to the promise I intended to make, and which was in my mind; I shall be loyal to the promise I made you at first, to win you if I could, and I shall wait till I can."
"What, then, will Ida Mayhew do?" she asked looking him full in the face.
He colored still more deeply, but meeting her searching gaze without blenching, he said, firmly and quietly: "She will always do what is right and noble, God bless her!"