"Not the one first made?" said he, smiling.
"No," said Fleda; "not unless it was the right one."
"But don't you think one ought to keep one's word, in any event?"
"I don't think anything can make it right to do wrong," Fleda said, gravely, and not without a secret trembling consciousness to what point she was speaking.
He left them, and again took several turns up and down the cabin before he sat down.
"You have not given me your promise yet, Guy," said his mother, whose eye had not once quitted him. "You said you would."
"I said, if I could."
"Well, you can?"
"I have two honourable meetings of the proscribed kind now on hand, to which I stand pledged."
Fleda hid her face in an agony. Mrs. Carleton's agony was in every line of hers as she grasped her son's wrist, exclaiming, "Guy, promise me!" She had words for nothing else. He hesitated still a moment, and then meeting his mother's look, he said gravely and steadily