After a few moments he said, very gently and gravely, "Annie, do you remember when my arm last encircled you?"
The crimson face turned pale as she recalled that awful midnight when he rescued her from death.
Both breathed fervently, "How good God has been to us!"
In their joy, as in fear and sorrow, they remembered Him.
"O, see!" cried Annie, "your hands are bleeding where the burr pricked them, and you have stained my hands again. Your blood is on them," she added, almost in fear.
"Yes, and the best blood of my heart ever will be. Is not the 'blood upon us' the deepest and most sacred hope of our hearts? Is it not the proof of the strongest love the world has known? Let mine there be the pledge that my life is as nothing when it can shield and shelter you."
And so he changed the meaning of the omen.
The hours passed unheeded. At last they went across the orchard as before, and stopped and looked at the place where the ladder fell, and then at each other.
"Walter," said Annie, shyly, "I gave you my first kiss here."
"I am repaid then."