"Yes, I shall always love you," she answered, agitatedly, after a pause in which she looked at him with troubled eyes. "I shall always love you, and always dream of the time when we--we thought we might belong to each other, Peter. But--but--you must see that we cannot--cannot think of all that now," she added with difficulty. "I couldn't fail Martin now, when he needs me so!"
"He needs you now," Peter conceded, "and I don't ask you to do anything that must distress him now. But in a few months, when his mother comes down for a visit, what then?"
Cherry's exquisite eyes were fixed on his.
"Well, what then?" she whispered.
"Then you must tell them honestly that you care for me," he said.
Cherry was trembling violently.
"But how could I!" she protested. "Tell him that I am going away, deserting him when he most needs me!"
Peter had grown very pale.
"But--" he stammered, his face close to hers--"but you cannot mean that this is the end?"
She moved her lips as if she was about to speak; looked at him blankly. Then suddenly tears came, and she wrenched her hands free from his, and laid her arms about his neck. Her wet cheek was pressed to his own, and he put his arms tightly about the little shaken figure.