"I"ll be on hand to-morrow, indeed I will!" he promised heartily, in response to their eager request.
"To-morrow! Just think!" Anita buried her glowing face in her lover"s shoulder for an instant, and then looked up with misty eyes. "Just think, if it hadn"t been for you, Mr. Blaine, there wouldn"t be any to-morrow! I don"t mean about your getting my father"s money all back for me--I"m grateful, of course, but it doesn"t count beside the greater thing you have given us! But for you, there would _never_ have been any--to-morrow."
"That"s true!" The young man"s arm encircled the girl"s slender waist as they stood together in the glowing sunlight, but his other hand gripped the detective"s. "We owe life, our happiness, the future, everything to you!"
And so Henry Blaine left them.
At the door he turned and glanced back, and the sight his eyes beheld was a goodly one for him to carry away with him into the world--a sight as old as the ages, as new as the hour, as prescient as the hours and ages to come. Just a man and a maid, sunshine and happiness, youth and love!--that, and the light of undying grat.i.tude in the eyes they bent upon him.