“I will save him by my life if need be.”
She looked at him with an admiring, grateful gaze:
“Your friendship is even better than love.”
“That is both,” he answered.
“You will promise to go away at once, or I cannot live near you and without you.”
“Yes, Cherokee, I promise,” he said firmly, and continued:
“To-day for a short interval we have belonged to each other. Heart has spoken to heart. To-morrow you are only my friend’s wife. Not a word, not a thought of yours or mine must destroy his trust. Our past will lie buried as in a deep grave, no tears bedewing it, no flowers marking the spot.”
So sorrowfully, even despairingly, were the words uttered that it seemed Cherokee’s turn to comfort.
“Think of me as almost happy since I know that you love me so,” she said, smiling through her tears.
“Tears from you for me,” he cried. “Bless you, bless you; may you think of me as one whose loyalty to another is loyalty to yourself,” he murmured. “I must go away and meet you no more. Pass a few busy, taskful years, come and go a few brief seasons of stimulating activity and wholesome intercourse; then I can hold out my untrembling hand to Robert’s wife, and forget the lover in the friend; now let us part.”