“I never can think you selfish, never will reproach you but will love and trust and honor you all my life,” she answered, with a simplicity as solemn as sincere; and, holding out the hand that held her dead mother’s cross, Canaris pledged his troth upon it with the mistaken chivalry which makes many a man promise to defend a woman against all men but himself.
“Now you can be happy again,” he said, feeling that he had done his best to keep her so.
She thought he meant look out upon the lake, dreaming of him as when he found her; and, turning, stretched forth her arms as if to embrace the whole world, and tell the smiling heaven her glad secret.
“Doubly happy; then I only hoped, now I know!”
Something in the exultant gesture, the fervent tone, the radiant face, thrilled Canaris with a sudden admiration; a feeling of proud possession; a conviction that he had gained, not lost; and he said within himself,—
“I am glad I did it. I will cherish her; she will inspire me; and good shall come out of seeming evil.”
His spirits rose with a new sense of well-being and well-doing. He gathered up the rejected treasure, and gave it back to Gladys, saying lightly,—
“You may keep it as a wedding-gift; then he need give no other. He meant it so, perhaps, and it will please him. Will you, love?”
“If you ask it. But why must brides wear pearls? They mean tears,” she added, thoughtfully, as she received them back.
“Perhaps because then the sorrows of their lives begin. Yours shall not: I will see to that,” he promised, with the blind confidence of the self-sacrificing mood he was in.