A flood of crimson suddenly dyed her face and throat, and even the soft, white hands which lay in her lap, and which were now seized with nervous trembling.
Then a look of resolution gleamed in her eyes, the red lips settled into an expression of firmness, and, though her heart beat like the frightened thing it was, her sweet tones did not falter as she replied:
“And then—Editha Dalton will be very proud also.”
Was ever heaven’s music sweeter than those few low-spoken, unfaltering words?
There was no mistaking them—they had been uttered with a purpose, and he knew that his love was returned.
Eager brown eyes looked into tender blue for one long, delicious minute. No word was spoken, but both knew that for all time they belonged to each other.
Then Earle Wayne, with a glad, though solemn light illumining his face, lifted the white hand that lay nearest him, touched it reverently with his lips, and then gently laid it back in its place.
It was as though he blessed her for the hope thus delicately held out to him, but his innate nobility and self-respect would not allow him to bind her to him by so much as a word until he could stand proudly before her and offer her a name that should not have so much as the shadow of a stain upon it.
CHAPTER XI
THE BUNCH OF HOLLY
“Silence is the perfect herald of joy;