She looked at him, her lips parting as she slowly grasped the drift of his words.
“Patience and faith are what you must have.”
“The patience I would have to borrow, or steal, for I never did have any of my own.”
It was going to be the hardest lesson for her to learn.
She took the knife he was toying with, and asked suddenly:
“Put your foot up a minute.”
He was wondering what she would do.
“I’m going to leave something for you to remember me by.”
She began carefully to etch a sentence across the upper part of the leather.
“Bear harder, cut it—that little scratching won’t last—as long as you are putting it there.”