They stopped in the road and grasped each other's hands with a warmth more expressive than all words. Then they went on silently again. At the gate Edith said timidly:
"Won't you come in?"
"I dare not, Miss Allen," said Arden, gravely, and with a dash of bitterness in his voice "I am a man of honor with all my faults, and I would keep the promise I made you in the letter I wrote one year ago. I must see very little of you," he continued, in a very heartsick tone, "but let me serve you just the same."
Edith's face seemed to possess more than human loveliness as it grew tender and gentle in the radiance of the full moon, and he looked at it with the hunger of a famished heart.
"But you made the promise to me, did you not?" she asked in a low tone.
"Certainly," said Arden.
"Then it seems to me that I have the right to absolve you from the promise," she continued in a still lower tone, and a face like a damask-rose in moonlight.
"Miss Allen—Edith—" said Arden, "oh, for Heaven's sake, be kind.
Don't trifle with me."
Edith had restrained her feelings so long that she was ready to either laugh or cry, so with a peal of laughter, that rang out like a chime of silver bells, she said:
"Like the fat abbot in the story, I give you full absolution and plenary indulgence."