“Do you remember?” he asked again, seeing that she was silent.
“Yes, I remember,” said the girl, her voice lower—“But I'd rather you did not—.” She stopped short.
“You wish to forget it, Helen?” asked Arthur.
He was trembling with anxiety, and his hands, which were clasped about his knee, were twitching. “Oh, Helen, how can you?” he went on, his voice breaking. “Do you not remember the last night that we sat there by the spring, and you were going away, no one knew for how long—and how you told me that it was more than you could bear; and the promise that you made me? Oh, Helen!”
The girl gazed at him with a frightened look; he had sunk down upon his knee before her, and he caught her hand which lay upon the log at her side.
“Helen!” he cried, “you cannot mean to forget that? For that promise has been the one joy of my life, that for which I have labored so hard! My one hope, Helen! I came to-day to claim it, to tell you—”
And with a wild glance about her, the girl sprang to her feet, snatching her hand away from his.
“Arthur!” she cried; “Arthur, you must not speak to me so!”
“I must not, Helen?”
“No, no,” she cried, trembling; “we were only children, and we did not know the meaning of the words we used. You must not talk to me that way, Arthur.”