She remained silent for a second or two, and then she said thoughtfully,
"Perhaps you could decide just as if there were no possibility of my ever being your wife?"
"To please you, I will assume that too."
Then she said, after a bit,
"One word more, dearest; you must grant me this—that I may always be able to think of it when I am alone and far from you, and be able to reassure myself: it is the promise I thought I could do so well without. Now you will give it me?"
"What promise?"
"That whatever happens to you or to me, whatever my father demands of me, and wherever you may have to go, you will never withdraw from what you have undertaken."
He met the earnest, pleading look of those beautiful eyes without flinching. His heart was light enough, so far as such a promise was concerned. Heavier oaths than that lay on him.
"That is simple enough, Natalie," said he. "I promise you distinctly that nothing shall cause me to swerve from my allegiance to the Society; I will give absolute and implicit obedience, and the best of such work as I can do. But they must not ask me to forget my Natalie."