"Then, of course, you will not tell me," she said, disappointed, yet far too shy to insist upon it.
"No, I will not now. I may do so at some future time," evasively.
"Do you think," she said, just a trifle nervously, "it was worth while to attach any meaning to his threat of vengeance? Sometimes I have felt afraid."
"I should not give it a thought," he replied. "It is not probable he will ever have the chance to harm you even if he wished it. No doubt the best part of his life will be passed in a prison cell."
"Oh, I hope not," the girl cried out in irrepressible sorrow; "I cannot bear to think that I have been the cause of depriving anyone of liberty. I did not think of all these things in the fatal moment when I saw him peering at me behind that laurel there. Now I feel as if I had betrayed a human being to endless pain for a paltry two hundred dollars."
Ronald Valchester looked before him silently at the weird, flickering shadows on the graveled path, and made no reply.
"But I wanted the money so very, very much," she added, appealingly.
Valchester looked down at the slim, white hand lying on his black coat sleeve, the taper forefinger sparkling
"With one great gem of globed dew
The moon shot crystal arrows through."
"Did you never think of parting with your diamond ring?" he said, abruptly.