Earle’s look spoke volumes as he noted the act, and brought the ever-ready blushes quickly to the fair face again.
Editha smiled, and, to cover her confusion, said, archly:
“It is well, is it not, to yield gracefully to the bonds that bind one?”
“My love—my love!” Earle answered, with a look of tender affection, “you never can know how precious you are to me. I wish—oh, how I wish I could take you with me; but I must go now.”
With no other farewell than one long, long hand-clasp, one fond, lingering glance—for other eyes were upon them—he was gone, mingling with the crowd, and so passed from her sight.
That night, when Sumner Dalton saw the pale gleam of that pure pearl upon Editha’s finger, a sinister look crept into his eyes and curved the corners of his mouth, though he gave no other sign that he had seen it.
“Do they think to defy me thus?” he muttered to himself, when he was alone again. “Let them beware, both of them. I will not brook such opposition to my will. If it were not for the very convenient purse of little Miss Independence, I would crush her now, before this thing goes any further. What can the youngster have gone to Europe for? It cannot be that——”
Sumner Dalton seemed to be smitten with some sudden and startling thought that made him grow very pale and troubled.
“No, no,” he went on, after thinking awhile, “it is as utterly impossible as that the sun should cease to shine.”