“I know you didn’t, but there is a poison about him that taints the air for me. Get your horse and let’s go to our place at the old mill.”
They soon reached the spot, and with a laugh she sprang upon the rock and took her seat against the tree.
“Now, dear, humour this whim of mine. I’ve grown superstitious since you’ve made me happy. I have a presentiment of evil because that man was in the house. I am going to take the ring off and put it on your hand again out here where only the eyes of our birds will see, and the river we love will hear.”
“That will be nicer. I somehow feel that my life is built on this dear old rock,” she answered soberly.
He took the ring off her finger, dipped it in the white foam of the river, kissed it, and placed it on her hand.
“Now the spell is broken, isn’t it?” she cried, holding it out in the sunlight a moment to catch the flash of its green diamond depth.
“I’ve another token for you. This, you will not even show to your mother or father.” She bent low over a tiny package he unfolded.
“This is the first medal I won at college,” he continued—“the first victory of my life. It was the force that determined my character. It gave me an inflexible will. I worked at a tremendous disadvantage. Others were two years ahead of me in study for the contest. I locked myself up in my room day and night for ten months, and took just enough food and sleep for strength to work. I worked seventeen hours a day, except Sundays, for ten months without an hour of play. I won it brilliantly. Every line cut on its gold surface stands for a thousand aches of my body. Every little pearl set in it, grew in a pain of that struggle which set its seal on my inmost life. I came out of those ten months a man. I have never known the whims of a boy since.”
“And you engraved something on the back to me!”
“Yes, can’t you read it?”