There were so many pictures that Courtland had to carry back with him to the seminary.  Bonnie in the kitchen, with a long-sleeved, high-necked gingham apron on, frying doughnuts or baking waffles.  Bonnie at the organ on Sunday in the little church in town, or sitting in a corner of the Sunday-school room surrounded by her seventeen boys, with her Bible open on her lap and in her face the light of heaven while the boys watched and listened, too intent to know that they were doing it.  Bonnie throwing snowballs from behind the snow fort he built her.  Bonnie with the wonderful mystery upon her when they talked about the little watch and whether she might keep it.  Bonnie in her window-seat with one of the books he had given her, the morning he started to go out with Father Marshall and see what was the matter with the automobile, and then came back to his room unexpectedly after his knife and caught a glimpse of her through the open door.

And that last one on the platform of Sloan’s Station, waving him a smiling good-by!

Courtland had torn himself away at last, with a promise that he would return the minute his work was over, and with the consolation that Bonnie was going to write to him.  They had arranged to pursue a course of study together.  The future opened up rosily before him.  How was it that skies had ever looked dark, that he had thought his ideals vanished, and womanhood a lost art when the world held this one pearl of a girl?  Bonnie!  Rose Bonnie!

CHAPTER XXXIII

The rest of the winter sped away quickly.  Courtland was very happy.  Pat looked at him enviously sometimes, yet he was content to have it so.  His old friend had not quite so much time to spend with him, but when he came for a walk and a talk it was with a heartiness that satisfied.  Pat had long ago discovered that there was a girl at Stephen Marshall’s old home, and he sat wisely quiet and rejoiced.  What kind of a girl he could only imagine from Courtland’s rapt look when he received a letter, and from the exquisite photograph that presently took its place on Courtland’s desk.  He hoped to have opportunity to judge more accurately when the summer came, for Mother Marshall had invited Pat to come out with Courtland in the spring and spend a week, and Pat was going.  Pat had something to confess to Mother Marshall.

Courtland went out twice that summer, once for a week as soon as his classes were over.  It was then that Bonnie promised to marry him.

Mother Marshall had a lot of sense and took a great liking to Pat.  One day she took him up in Stephen’s room and told him all about Stephen’s boyhood.  Pat, great big, baby giant that he was, knelt down beside her chair, put his face in her lap, and blurted out the tale of how he had led the mob against Stephen and been indirectly the cause of his death.

Mother Marshall heard him through with tears of compassion running down her cheeks.  It was not quite news to her, for Courtland had told her something of the tale, without any names, when he had confessed that he held the garments of those who did the persecuting.