Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/314

 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.