“Yes, Ralph, I do; I loved you before I left that horrid cavern, and it almost broke my heart when I thought you the husband of another. But even after I found you were free again, I would not encourage you to speak the words which I knew were on your lips, for I wished to try you first, to prove the good I felt there was in you.”
“Bless you for your frankness; but you will perhaps be surprised when I tell you that my heart forgot its allegiance to that other the moment I first beheld you.”
“Then why did you persist?” hastily interrupted Enid, raising her radiant face in surprise, then blushing scarlet again as she remembered it must wound him to be thus reminded of the past.
“It is all right, darling,” he returned, noticing her confusion, and clasping her again to him. “I wish you to know me just as I am. I persisted in the evil I had begun, merely because my will and my pride would not yield to my heart. But I cannot express the gratitude I feel for the gift of your precious love. I know——”
“Now, Ralph, you are not to talk that way any more. You have done wrong, and you own it and repent of it. It is enough. None are perfect, and I have my faults, as you will find out one of these days. I love you just as you are now, not what you may have been a long time ago, so please don’t disparage my lover to me any more,” and the bright-eyed little maiden held up two pouting lips.
She received what she wished, and then Ralph asked, tenderly:
“And you will be my wife, Enid?”
“Yes, Ralph.”
“When, darling?”
“Whenever you wish.”