"Do you think I ever could forget?" she asked.
"You predicted we would one day stand reunited on the heights of such
love as we had not dreamed of then. I asked you when that day would be;
do you remember your answer?"
"I do."
He continued, in impassioned tones: "Are not the conditions fulfilled,
sweetheart? My love for you then was as a dream, a myth, compared with
that I bring you to-day, and looking in your eyes I need no words to
tell me that your love has broadened and deepened with the years.
Kathie, is not this 'the time appointed'?"
"It must be," she replied; "there could be none other like this!"
Holding her head against his breast and raising her face to his, he
said, "You gave me your heart that day, Kathie, to hold in trust. I have
been faithful to that trust through all these years; do you give it me
now for my very own?"
"Yes," she answered, slowly, with sweet solemnity; "to have and to hold,
forever!"
He sealed the promise with a long, rapturous kiss; but what followed,
the broken, disjointed phrases, the mutual pledges, the tokens of love
given and received, are all among the secrets which the mountains never
told.
As they retraced their steps towards the hotel, Darrell said, "We have
waited long, sweetheart."
"Yes, but the waiting has brought us good of itself," she answered.
"Think of all you have accomplished,--I know better than you think, for
your father has kept me posted,--and better yet, what these years have
fitted you for accomplishing in the future! To me, that was the best
part of your work in your story. It was strong and cleverly told, but
what pleased me most was the evidence that it was but the beginning, the
promise of something better yet to come."
"If only I could persuade all critics to see it through your eyes!"
Darrell replied, with a smile.
"Do you wish to know," she asked, with sudden seriousness, "what will
always remain to me the noblest, most heroic act of your life?"
"Most assuredly I do," he answered, her own gravity checking the
laughing reply which rose to his lips.
"The fight you made and won alone in the mountains the day that you
renounced our love for honor's sake. I can see now that the stand you
took and maintained so nobly formed the turning-point in both our lives.
I did not look at it then as you did. I would have married you then and
there and gone with you to the ends of the earth rather than sacrifice
your love, but you upheld my honor with your own. You fought against
heavy odds, and won, and to me no other victory will compare with it,
since-'greater they who on life's battle-field
With unseen foes and fierce temptations fight.'"