"I will," said Vane. "Thank God and you into whose heart He has put this saving thought of righteousness."
"Yes," said Rayburn, "I see what you mean, but really, the credit isn't mine at all, it is all Carol's. Do you know, Maxwell, that I am going to have one of the most delightful wives man ever won? If I could only tell you just exactly how I fell in love with her—but of course a man could never tell another man that, and after all it doesn't matter. I've got the one girl in the world I want——"
There was another little pause, and then Rayburn went on, speaking as shyly and hesitatingly as a schoolboy confessing a peccadillo:
"There's one other thing I should like to say, Maxwell, but I hardly know how to say it."
He stopped again, and Vane said, smiling for the first time during the interview:
"Then say it, as one man would say it to another. I think we understand each other now. What is it?"
"Well, it's this," replied Rayburn, flushing like a girl under the tan of his skin, "you know Carol and I met quite by chance, and I took her away just as what she seemed to be. Then, after a month or two—you'll hardly believe me, but it is the Lord's own truth—I began to fall in love with her, honestly I mean, and in quite a different way. One evening, it was in Japan, and we were coming back from a trip to Fuji. I couldn't stand it any longer, I felt such a hopeless sweep, and I told her. It was a queer sort of courtship, and it took me about six weeks to bring her round—and then at last—we were in the Rockies then—she gave in and confessed that she loved me in the same way that I loved her. I kissed her. I could never tell you how different that kiss was from all the others."
"Of course it was," said Vane, gently. "It was a pure one, a holy one, and God was very near you, Rayburn, in that moment."
"I believe He was," replied Rayburn, simply, "for from that moment, we were both absolutely changed. Since that kiss, Carol has been as sacred to me as my own sister would be if I had one. That is what I wanted to tell you."