"
"You are correct; and on that occasion your generous kindness made me
very happy. I thought it would make my mother happy, also. I ran all the
way home, lest the roses might wilt before she saw them."
He stopped and gazed into the fire.
"Was she pleased with them?"
"She was dead. We put them in her coffin. They were buried with her."
Margie laid her hand lightly on his.
"I am so sorry for you! I, too, have buried my mother."
After a little silence, Arch went on.
"The next time you saw me was when you gave me these." He took out his
pocket-book, and displayed to her, folded in white paper, a cluster of
faded bluebells. "Do you remember them?"
"I think I do. You were knocked down by the pole of the carriage?"
"Yes. And the next time? Do you remember the next time?"
"I do."
"I thought so. I want to thank you, now, for your generous forbearance.
I want to tell you how your keeping my secret made a different being of
me. If you had betrayed me to justice, I might have been now an inmate
of a prison cell. Margie Harrison, your silence saved me! Do me the
justice to credit my assertion, when I tell you that I did not enter my
grandfather's house because I cared for the plunder I should obtain. I
had taken a vow to be revenged on him for his cruelty to my parents, and
Sharp, the man who was with me, represented to me, that there was no
surer way of accomplishing my purpose than by taking away the treasures
that he prized.
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