"I cannot believe that they would do anything so underhanded and dishonorable," said Wallace, greatly shocked.
"They will," Violet persisted, excitedly. "Belle said 'anything was fair in love and war,' and when she gets aroused, as she was last night, she stops at nothing. Then, too, she hinted at some secret, and I am greatly troubled over it."
"Violet," began Wallace, solemnly, as he bent to look into her face, while he held her hands in almost a painful clasp, "are you sure that you love me—that you will never regret the promise that you made me last night? You are very young, you have seen but little of the world, and a larger experience might cause you to change by and by."
Violet's delicate fingers closed over his spasmodically.
"Wallace! you are not sorry! Oh, do not tell me that you regret, and that I am to lose you," she pleaded, almost hysterically.
"My darling," he answered, with gentle fondness, "you are all the world to me, and if I should lose you, I should lose all that makes life desirable; but I wish you to count the cost of your choice and not make enemies of your only friends, to regret it later."
"No, Wallace—no! I shall not regret it. I love you with my whole heart, and—I shall die if we are separated," Violet concluded, with a pathetic little sob that went straight to her lover's heart.
His face grew luminous with a great joy; he knew then that she belonged to him for all time.
"Then listen, love," he said; and bending, he placed his lips close to her ear, and whispered for a minute or two.
Violet listened, while a strange, wondering expression grew on her fair face, and a burning blush mounted to her brow and lost itself among the rings of soft, golden hair that lay clustering there.