“I did, but this letter of which I tell you called me back to start it all over again.”

She came a step closer.  “Who wrote that letter, and what did it contain concerning me?” she demanded.

“One of your most intimate chums wrote it.  It contained the hazard that possibly I had given up too soon.  It said that in a fit of petulance you had broken your engagement with Ammon twice this winter, and he had come back because he knew you did not really mean it.  I thought deeply there on the dock when I read that, and my boat sailed without me.  I argued that anything so weak as an engagement twice broken and patched up again was a mighty frail affair indeed, and likely to smash completely at any time, so I came on the run.  I said once I would not see you marry any other man.  Because I could not bear it, I planned to go into exile of any sort to escape that.  I have changed my mind.  I have come back to haunt you until the ceremony is over.  Then I go, not before.  I was insane!”

The girl laughed merrily.  “Not half so insane as you are now, Hart!” she cried gaily.  “You know that Philip Ammon has been devoted to me all my life.  Now I’ll tell you something else, because this looks serious for you.  I love him with all my heart.  Not while he lives shall he know it, and I will laugh at him if you tell him, but the fact remains:  I intend to marry him, but no doubt I shall tease him constantly.  It’s good for a man to be uncertain.  If you could see Philip’s face at the quarterly return of his ring, you would understand the fun of it.  You had better have taken your boat.”

“Possibly,” said Henderson calmly.  “But you are the only woman in the world for me, and while you are free, as I now see my light, I remain near you.  You know the old adage.”

“But I’m not ‘free!’” cried Edith Carr.  “I’m telling you I am not.  This night is my public acknowledgment that Phil and I are promised, as our world has surmised since we were children.  That promise is an actual fact, because of what I just have told you.  My little fits of temper don’t count with Phil.  He’s been reared on them.  In fact, I often invent one in a perfect calm to see him perform.  He is the most amusing spectacle.  But, please, please, do understand that I love him, and always shall, and that we shall be married.”

“Just the same, I’ll wait and see it an accomplished fact,” said Henderson.  “And Edith, because I love you, with the sort of love it is worth a woman’s while to inspire, I want your happiness before my own.  So I am going to say this to you, for I never dreamed you were capable of the feeling you have displayed for Phil.  If you do love him, and have loved him always, a disappointment would cut you deeper than you know.  Go careful from now on!  Don’t strain that patched engagement of yours any further.  I’ve known Philip all my life.  I’ve known him through boyhood, in college, and since.  All men respect him.