He took the ring off her finger, dipped it in the white foam of the river, kissed it, and placed it on her hand. “Now the spell is broken, isn’t it?” she cried, holding it out in the sunlight a moment to catch the flash of its green diamond depth. “I’ve another token for you. This, you will not even show to your mother or father.” She bent low over a tiny package he unfolded. “This is the first medal I won at college,” he continued--“the first victory of my life. It was the force that determined my character. It gave me an inflexible will. I worked at a tremendous disadvantage. Others were two years ahead of me in study for the contest. I locked myself up in my room day and night for ten months, and took just enough food and sleep for strength to work. I worked seventeen hours a day, except Sundays, for ten months without an hour of play. I won it brilliantly. Every line cut on its gold surface stands for a thousand aches of my body. Every little pearl set in it, grew in a pain of that struggle which set its seal on my inmost life. I came out of those ten months a man. I have never known the whims of a boy since.” “And you engraved something on the back to me!” “Yes, can’t you read it?” “My eyes are dim,” she whispered. “It is this--_In the hand of manhood’s tenderest love I bring to thee my boyhood’s brightest dream_. I was a man when I woke, but I have never lived till you taught me. Keep this as a pledge of eternal love. It’s the only little trinket I ever possessed. The world will see our ring. Don’t let them see this. It is the seal of your sovereignty of my soul in life, in death, and beyond. Will you make me this eternal pledge?” “Unto the uttermost!” she murmured. “Unto the uttermost!” he solemnly echoed. “And now, what can I say or do for you when you show me in this spirit of prodigal sacrifice how dear I am in your eyes?” “Those words from your lips are enough,” he declared. “I ’ll give you more. I’m going to give you just a little bit of myself. I haven’t asked Mama, but we are engaged now--come closer.” She placed her beautiful arms around his neck and pressed her lips upon his in the first rapturous kiss of love. “No,--no more. It is enough,” she protested. CHAPTER XIV--A MYSTERIOUS LETTER HE was at home now, waiting impatiently for the General’s answer to his letter. Two weeks had passed and he had not received it. But she had explained in her letters that her father had returned the day he left, had a talk with McLeod, and left on important business. They were expecting his return at any moment. It was a new revelation of life he found in their first love letters. He never knew that he could write before. He sat for hours at his desk in his law office and poured out to her his dreams, hopes and ambitions. All the poetry of youth, and the passion and beauty of life, he put into those letters.