At last, one day, the physician told them he would live and be himself in health again. Sweetly fell these words, like dew on dying flowers—their hearts' throbbing chords were softly soothed.
******
They were sitting together in their own room. Robert's face had greatly changed.
"Cherokee," he began, "it isn't long ago that I promised, before God, to love and cherish you always. I have learned that that didn't mean just to-day, or a year from to-day. It meant this: that we must make the fulfillment of our sacred promise to each other the supreme effort of our lives, so long as we both live. I know I have erred, but I promised Marrion on that terrible night that I would be a man. It is two years, to-day, since he risked his own life to save you and me. Tell me, have I kept the faith?"
He held out his hand in a half pleading gesture; she put her's on his shoulders, and throwing her head back with the exuberant happiness of a child, said, with enthusiasm:
"You have! you have! and I do—do love you." She glanced over his shoulder into the mirror.
