"Of your own free will?"
After a moment of silence she ejaculated, in a whisper, "Yes."
"Now wait," said the man, coming to the front; "'nough has been said by you." He then addressed himself to Miss Eunice with the remains of his laugh still illuminating his face.
"This is my wife's sister, and she's one of the jealous kind. I love my wife" (here he became grave), "and I never showed her any kind of slight that I know of. I've always been fair to her, and she's always been fair to me. Plain sailin' so far; I never kep' anything from her—but this." He reached out and took the glove from the woman, and spread it out upon his own palm, as Miss Eunice had seen him do once before. He looked at it thoughtfully. "I wouldn't tell her about this; no, never. She was never very particular to ask me; that's where her trust in me came in. She knowed I was above doing anything out of the way—that is—I mean—" He stammered and blushed, and then rushed on volubly. "But her sister here thought I paid too much attention to it; she thought I looked at it too much, and kep' it secret. So she nagged and nagged, and kept the pitch boilin' until I had to let it out: I told 'em" (Miss Eunice shivered). "'No,' says she, my wife's sister, 'that won't do, Gorman. That's chaff, and I'm too old a bird.' Ther'fore I fetched her straight to you, so she could put the question direct."
He stopped a moment as if in doubt how to go on. Miss Eunice began to open her eyes, and she released the mantel. The man resumed with something like impressiveness:
"When you last held that," said he, slowly, balancing the glove in his hand, "I was a wicked man with bad intentions through and through. When I first held it I became an honest man, with good intentions."
A burning blush of shame covered Miss Eunice's face and neck.
"An' as I kep' it my intentions went on improvin' and improvin', till I made up my mind to behave myself in future, forever. Do you understand?—forever. No backslidin', no hitchin', no slippin'-up. I take occasion to say, miss, that I was beset time and again; that the instant I set my foot outside them prison-gates, over there, my old chums got round me; but I shook my head. 'No,' says I, 'I won't go back on the glove.'"
Miss Eunice hung her head. The two had exchanged places, she thought; she was the criminal and he the judge.
"An' what is more," continued he, with the same weight in his tone, "I not only kep' sight of the glove, but I kep' sight of the generous sperrit that gave it. I didn't let that go. I never forgot what you meant. I knowed—I knowed," repeated he, lifting his forefinger—"I knowed a time would come when there wouldn't be any enthoosiasm, any 'hurrah,' and then perhaps you'd be sorry you was so kind to me; an' the time did come."