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Rh They asked me to stay to lunch. I did so, and made myself as agreeable as possible.

Day after day I continued my visits until I could find no reasonable pretext for coming so constantly—Edith's ankle having been well some time.

At the end of about two months I proposed to her, and she accepted me.

My mother, who knew nothing about Edith, had to be told.

She was astonished, and at first would not believe that I had engaged myself to the daughter of my father's murderer, as she persisted in calling him.

But after meeting Edith, and I having explained to her that it would be a great punishment to Garren for his only daughter to marry the son of the man he had killed by his treachery, she at last looked at it from the same point of view as myself.

Edith wrote to her father, informing him of our engagement.

But, resolving that nothing should thwart me in my object, I bribed one of the servants to get me the letter, for I knew if he heard we were engaged he would be over by the next boat, and I should lose her.

This I determined should not happen if it was in my power to stop it.