"My darling! nothing can keep us apart now!" he murmured, in tones vibrant with joy, "you are free—free as the air you breathe—free to give yourself to me! Come!"
With a smile of love and happiness Edith sprang into his embrace and laid her face upon his breast.
"Oh, Roy!" she breathed, "all this seems too much joy to be real or to be borne in one day!"
"I think we can manage to endure it," returned her lover, with a fond smile. "I confess, however, that it seems like a day especially dedicated to blessings, for I have other good news for you."
"Can it be possible? What more could I ask, or even think of?" exclaimed Edith, wonderingly.
Roy smiled mysteriously, and returned, with a roguish gleam in his eyes:
"My news will keep a while—until you give me the pledge I crave, my darling. You will be my wife, Edith?" he added, with tender earnestness.
"You know that I will, Roy," she whispered; and, lifting her face to his, their mutual vows were sealed by their betrothal caress.
The young man drew from an inner pocket a tiny circlet of gold in which there blazed a flawless stone, clear as a drop of dew, and slipped it upon the third finger of Edith's left hand.
"I have had it ever since the day after your arrival in New York," he smilingly remarked, "but coward conscience would not allow me to give it to you; however, it will prove to you that I was lacking in neither faith nor hope."