“Well,” his quivering lips finally produced, “we must make the best of it. We've only done what millions before us have done for love of each other. And what do they say of me? I suppose they think I won't act the part of an honorable man; but, Dora darling--”
“Say of _you?_” she broke in, bitterly. “They have never mentioned your name. Not a soul--_not even my mother_--dreams that I ever met you in secret. You are the last human being on earth that would be--be accused. Oh, you are safe! And I'd die ten thousand lingering deaths rather than drag you into it! Oh no, you are absolutely safe. I know full well what such an exposure would mean to you.”
A sense of unaccountable lightness possessed him; a vague sort of relief seemed to hover over him; the blood packed in his heart by horror now began to flow warm and free. “They haven't mentioned--you say--You--didn't tell your mother--that I--?”
“No, I'd cut out my tongue rather than let her know. You told me when we last met that even a bare report of our engage--our love for each other right now would harm your plans. Do you think that I'd let a horror like this come up against you? Even if you declared it was true, I'd say it was a lie! I'd say I cared for some one else. They declare it was Fred Walton, anyway, because he left so suddenly. I've told them it wasn't--told them and told them, but they won't believe me. They may think what they please, but they sha'n't say it was _you!_”
“Fred Walton!” Galt's mind galloped on. “They blamed it on that reckless, devil-may-care fellow, and it would be like Dora's magnanimity to deny the truth for all time. But should he let her?” A storm of incongruous tenderness now swept over him as he stood in the coign of immunity she had preserved for him and regarded the sweet, stricken creature before him. He laughed aloud in sheer derision of the escape she was offering him, and for one blind instant he actually believed in his own manhood.
“Leave you?” he said, warmly, and he took her hands into his, and, although she firmly resisted, he drew her into his arms and tenderly kissed her cold, flower-like lips. “Let another man, and a scamp like Fred Walton, have his name coupled in that way with yours? Never! I want you, Dora. I'd be a miserable dog, even if I succeeded with my paltry enterprise by leaving you! No, I'll come here to-morrow and we'll be married, as we ought to have been months and months ago. Now, go to bed, and let me see roses on your pretty cheeks in the morning.”