“God bless your heart for that,” cried Frederic, as he took the little
packet from her hands and began breaking the seals. “Yesterday morning,
when old Otto’s plans were ready, I foresaw the danger of the trip
ahead of me. I realized I might never come back alive. If they
discovered who I was a second too soon it would mean my death. I dared
not, for my country’s sake, tell even you what I was doing. My honor
was at stake. I dared not drop the slightest hint nor write a single
line. The only thing I’d kept about me in the apartment that wasn’t
filthy German stuff was what’s in here.”
Slowly he was unwrapping something rolled in tissue paper, as Jane,
eager-eyed, looked wonderingly on.
“But,” he went on, “I couldn’t go away from you without leaving some
token, some clue. If it happened that I never came back, I wanted you
to know—”
He stopped abruptly.
“To know what?” questioned the girl breathlessly.
“To know that I loved you, darling, better than all else save honor,”
he said, taking her into his arms. “See the token I left behind for
you. It’s an old, old family ring with the Seymour crest. You’ll wear
it, girl of mine, won’t you, wear it always.”
Unhesitatingly Jane Strong thrust forth the third finger on her left
hand, and instinctively her lips turned upward toward his.
And no matter what might have happened just then in the apartment next
door, neither of them would have known anything about it.
THE END
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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