arl?"

She said faintly, "Yes."

He sat silent a moment, and then said, "I thank God!" and, lifting her
hand, kissed it.

"Oh, Rene," she cried, "what have I done?" and she burst into tears. "I
did not mean to."

"Is it so hard, dear Pearl? I have made you cry."

"No, it is not hard; but it is that I am ashamed to think that I loved
thee long--long before thou didst care for me. Love thee, Rene! Thou
dost not dream how--how I love thee."

[Illustration: "'I know, I know, but--'"]

Her reticence, her trained reserve, were lost in this passion of
long-restrained love. Ah, here was Schmidt's Quaker Juliet!

He drew her to him and kissed her wet cheek. "You will never, never
regret," he said. "All else is of no moment. We love each other. That is
all now. I have so far never failed in anything, and I shall not now."

He had waited long, he said, and for good reasons. Some day, but not now
in an hour of joy, he would tell her the story of his life, a sad one,
and of why he had been what men call brutal to Carteaux and why their
friend Schmidt, who knew of his love, had urged him to wait. She must
trust him yet a little while longer.

"And have I not trusted thee?"

"Yes, Pearl."

"We knew, mother and I, knowing thee as we did, that there must be more
cause for that dreadful duel than we could see."

"More? Yes, dear, and more beyond it; but it is all over now. The man I
would have killed is going to France."

"Oh, Rene--killed!"

"Yes, and gladly. The man goes back to France and my skies are clear for
love to grow."

He would kill! A strange sense of surprise arose in her mind, and the
thought of how little even now she knew of the man she loved and
trusted. "I can wait, Rene," she said, "and oh, I am so glad; but
mother--I have never had a secret from her, never."

"Tell her," he said; "but then let it rest between us until I come
back."

"That would be best, and now I must go."

"Yes, but a moment, Pearl. Long ago, the day after we landed, a sad and
friendless man, I walked out to the river and washed away my cares in
the blessed waters. On my return, I sat on this very log, and talked to
some woodmen, and asked the name of a modest flower. They said, 'We call
it the Quaker lady.' And to think that just here I should find again, my
Quaker lady."

"But I am not a Quaker lady. I am a naughty 'Separatist,' as Friends
call it. Come, I must go, Rene. I shall say good-by to thee to-night.
Thou wilt be