“I cared not for her.” He shook his tall and beautiful head, impatient of the silky black lock which fell across his forehead.
“Perhaps then 'tis your magnificent carriage they would admire,” laughed the girl, teasingly.
Dick swept her close to his heart. “My golden-throated dove, I cannot join in your sweet laughter, for I have a boding heart, this day. I have enemies. They will use my past record. The courts are new, and judgments swift and cold. If they should send me again to the penitentiary I—”
“Dearest I should know you to be innocent, and I should wait for you.”
He kissed her tenderly on cheeks, and eyes, and mouth. He took her hands from his shoulders, slipping off the little silken mitts and putting them in an inner pocket, and kissed the soft, pink palms.
“Ah, Lady-Bird, if I should not return you'll remember me?”
“Always.”
“My own pure love! No breath of shame shall ever sully your fair name through me.”
“Right well I know that, Richard. God bless you. I will pray for you every hour.”
At evening George Taylor brought her a note from Dick.