Aileen bent to examine it, her eyes straining in the increasing dusk.
"Why, it's never—it's not my handkerchief!—Champney!"
"Yes, yours, Aileen—that night in all the horror and despair, I heard something in your voice that told me you—didn't hate me—"
"Oh, Champney!"
"Yes. I've kept it ever since—I asked permission to take it in with me?—I mean into my cell. They granted it. It was with me night and day—my head lay on it at night; I got my first sleep so—and it went with me to work during the day. It's been kissed clean thin till it's mere gossamer; it helped, that and the work, to save my brain—"
She caught handkerchief and hand in both hers and pressed her lips to them again and again.
"And now I'm going to keep it, after you're mine in the sight of man, as you are now before God; put it away and keep it for—" He stopped short.
"For whom?" she whispered.
He drew her close to him—closer and more near.
"Aileen, my beloved," his voice was earnestly joyful, "I am hoping for the blessing of children—are you?—"