He started up, and caught her to his bosom, and kissed her fondly, fervently, reverentially.
“Now, Le, I wish you to promise me to forego vengeance on your ‘dearest foe.’ To use no violence toward the wicked man who has caused all our trouble; because, dearest dear, there can be no violence without lawbreaking, and no lawbreaking without such consequences as would inflict the deepest sorrow, the fiercest anguish on me. And I have already suffered so much, you would not have me suffer more. You will promise me, Le?”
“Yes, my best beloved! Yes, my sovereign lady! I will promise all you ask—even to the renouncing of my just vengeance and the leaving of that incarnate fiend to the law. I wish it could hang him! I hope, at the least, it will send him to the State prison! I will do all that my queen——”
“Your wife, Le.”
“My angel wife requires me to do. And I will endure all that she requires me to endure.”
“Meantime—although we must have patience until this case is decided, as it must be decided, in our favor—we are husband and wife. Never dream that I can consider myself in any other light than as your wife, or that I could think of you in any other way than as my husband. We shall not be separated, but remain, as lately, members of the same family, inmates of the same house; living as a betrothed couple, or as brother and sister, until this cloud from the depths of Tartarus has been cleared away from between us. Do you promise, Le?”
“Everything! Everything you wish, Odalite.”
“That is my dear, brave, loyal Le!”
There was something in this interview—that had been held in the sight and hearing of all the little company—that so touched all hearts that the boys and girls gathered around the young couple with looks of heartfelt sympathy. The girls kissed Odalite and pressed the hands of Le. The boys shook hands with Le, and looked “unutterable things” at Odalite.
“My dear,” said Mr. Force to his wife, “I think you had better take our daughter off to your own apartment. It grows late, and she is tired. And we have a trying day before us to-morrow.”