"Thank God you came," he said reverently. "And, Beatrice, you will let me call you Beatrice, won't you?"
"Why, of course, you must, Dick."
"May I kiss you?" he asked, and held out his arms.
She came to him in all the sweet freshness of her young life and offered him her pure young lips. Never had he known what joy meant as he knew it then, never had he felt so thankful that in spite of dire temptation he had kept his manhood clean.
Closer and closer he strained her to his heart, while words of love and of thankfulness struggled for expression. For as she laid her head on his shoulder, and he felt the beating of her heart, his mind swept like lightning over the past years, and he knew that angels of God had ministered to him, that they had shielded him from danger, and helped him in temptation. And this he knew also: while he had been on the brink of ruin through a woman, it was also by a woman that he had been saved. The thought of Beatrice Stanmore had been a power which had defied the powers of evil, and enabled him to keep his manhood clean.
Even yet the wonder of it all was beyond words, for he had come there that morning believing that Beatrice was the promised wife of Sir George Weston, and now, as if by the wave of some magician's wand, his beliefs had been dispelled, and he had found her free.
An hour before, he dared not imagine that this unspoilt child of nature could ever think of him with love, and yet her face was pressed against his, and she was telling him the simple story of her love—a love unsullied by the world, a love unselfish as that of a mother, and as strong as death.
"But I am so poor," he stammered at length; "just a voting machine at four hundred a year."
"As though you could ever be that," she laughed. "You are going to do great things, my love. You are going to live and work for the betterment of the world. And I—I shall be with you all the time."
He had much to tell her—a story so wonderful that it was difficult to believe. But Beatrice believed it. The thought of an angel who had come to him, warned him, guided him, and strengthened him, was not strange to her. For her pure young eyes had pierced the barriers of materialism, just as the light of the stars pierces the darkness of night. Because her soul was pure, she knew that the angels of God were never far away, and that the Eternal Goodness used them to minister to those who would listen to their voices.