He checked himself, and, turning it about with a disdainful air, said, coldly--

"If I had given you this, it should have been quite perfect. The cross is not large nor fine enough to match the chain. Do you see?"

"Ah, but the little cross is more precious than all the rest! That is the one jewel my mother left me, and I put it there to make my rosary complete;" and Gladys surveyed it with a pretty mixture of devout affection and girlish pleasure.

"I'll give you a better one than this--a string of tiny carved saints in scented wood, blessed by holy hands, and fit to say prayers like yours upon. You will take it, though my gift is not half so costly as his?" he said, eagerly.

"Whose?"

"Helwyze gave you that."

"But why?" and Gladys opened wide her clear, large eyes in genuine astonishment.

"He is a generous master; your singing pleases him, and he pays you so," replied Canaris, bitterly.

"He is not my master!"

"He will be."

"Never! I shall not go, if I am to be burdened with benefits. I will earn my just due, but not be overpaid. Tell him so."

Gladys caught back the chain, unclasped the cross, and threw the pearls upon the grass, where they lay, gleaming, like great drops of frozen dew, among the green. Canaris liked that; thought proudly, "I have no need to bribe;" and hastened to make his own the thing another seemed to covet. Drawing nearer, he looked up, asking, in a tone that gave the question its true meaning--

"May I be your master, Gladys?"

"Not even you."

"Your slave, then?"

"Never that."

"Your lover?"

"Yes."

"But I can give you nothing except myself."

"Love is enough;" and finding his arms about her, his face, warm and wistful, close to hers, Gladys bent to give and take the first kiss, which was all they had to bestow upon each other.

Singularly unimpassioned was the embrace in which they stood for a brief instant. Canaris held her with a clasp more jealous than fond; Gladys clung to him, yet trembled, as if some fear subdued her joy; and both vaguely felt the incompleteness of a moment which should be perfect.

"You do love me, then?" she whispered, wondering at his silence.

"Should I ask you to be my wife if I did not?" and the stern look melted into an expression of what seemed, to her, reproach.

"No; ah, no! I fancied that I might have deceived myself. I am so young, you are so kind. I never had a--friend before;" and Gladys smiled shyly, as the word which meant "lover" dropped from her lips.

"I am not kind: I am selfish, cruel, perhaps, to let you love me so. You will never reproach me for it, Gladys? I mean to save you from ills you know nothing of; to cherish and protect you--if I can."

Verily in earnest now; for the touch of those innocent lips reminded him of all his promise meant, recalled his own unfitness to guide or guard another, when so wayward and unwise himself. Gladys could not understand the true cause of his beseeching look, his urgency of tone; but saw in them only the generous desire to keep safe the creature dearest to him, and loved him the more for it.

"I never can think you selfish, never will reproach you but will love and trust and honor you all my life," she answered, with a simplicity as solemn as sincere; and, holding out the hand that held her dead mother's cross, Canaris pledged his troth upon it with the mistaken chivalry which makes many a man promise to defend a woman against all men but himself.

"Now you can be happy again," he said, feeling that he had done his best to keep her so.

She thought he meant look out upon the lake, dreaming of him as when he found her; and, turning, stretched forth her arms as if to embrace the whole world, and tell the smiling heaven her glad secret.

"Doubly happy; then I only hoped, now I know!"

Something in the exultant gesture, the fervent tone, the radiant face, thrilled Canaris with a sudden admiration; a feeling of proud possession; a conviction that he had gained, not lost; and he said within himself--

"I am glad I did it. I will cherish her; she will inspire me; and good shall come out of seeming evil."

His spirits rose with a new sense of well-being and well-doing. He gathered up the rejected treasure, and gave it back to Gladys, saying lightly--

"You may keep it as a wedding-gift; then he need give no other. He meant it so, perhaps, and it will please him. Will you, love?"

"If you ask it. But why must brides wear pearls? They mean tears," she added, thoughtfully, as she received them back.

"Perhaps because then the sorrows of their lives begin. Yours shall not: I will see to that," he promised, with the blind confidence of the self-sacrificing mood he was in.

Gladys sat down upon the rock to explore a pocket, so small and empty that Canaris could not help smiling, as he, too, leaned and looked with a lover's freedom.

"Only my old chain. I must put back the cross, else I shall lose it," laughed Gladys, as she brought out a little cord of what seemed woven yellow silk.

"Is it your hair?" he asked, his eye caught by its peculiar sunshiny hue.

"Yes; I could not buy a better one, so I made this. My hair is all the gold I have."

"Give it to me, and you wear mine. See, I have an amulet as well as you."

Fumbling in his breast, Canaris undid a slender chain, whence hung a locket, curiously chased, and tarnished with long wear. This he unslung, and, opening, showed Gladys the faded picture of a beautiful, sad woman.

"That is my Madonna."

"Your mother?"

"Yes."

"Mine now." The girl touched it with her lips, then softly closed and laid it on her lap.

Silently Canaris stood watching her, as she re-slung both poor but precious relics, while the costlier one slipped down, as if ashamed to lie beside them. He caught and swung it on his finger, thinking of something he had lately read to Helwyze.

"Kharsu, the Persian, sent a necklace to Schirin, the princess, whom he loved. She was a Christian, and hung a cross upon his string of pearls, as you did," he said aloud.

"But I am not a princess, and Mr. Helwyze does not love me; so the pretty story is all spoiled."

"This thing recalled it. I have given you a necklace, and you are hanging a cross upon it. Wear the one, and use the other, for my sake. Will you, Gladys?"

"Did Schirin convert Kharsu?" asked the girl, catching his thought more from his face than his words; for it wore a look of mingled longing and regret, which she had never seen before.

"That I do not know; but you must convert me: I am a sad heathen, Helwyze says."

"Has he tried?"

"No."

"Then I will!"

"You see I've had no one to teach me any thing but worldly wisdom, and I sometimes feel as I should be better for a little of the heavenly sort. So when you wear the rosary I shall give you--"Fair saint, in your orisons be all my sins remembered;'" and Canaris put his hand upon her head, smiling, as if half-ashamed of his request.

"I am no Catholic, but I will pray for you, and you shall not be lost.