But if she regretted it--if it had been a thing done out of her pity for his condition, or her feeling of responsibility, if it killed him after all, there was only one thing left to do.

Not for McLean, not for the Bird Woman, not for the Duncans would Freckles have done it--but for the Angel--if it would make her happy--he would do anything.
"Angel," whispered Freckles, with his lips against her hair, "you haven't learned your history book very well, or else you've forgotten." "Forgotten what ?" sobbed the Angel.
"Forgotten about the real knight, Ladybird," breathed Freckles.

"Don't you know that, if anything happened that made his lady sorry, a real knight just simply couldn't be remembering it?
Angel, darling little Swamp Angel, you be listening to me.

There was one night on the trail, one solemn, grand, white night, that there wasn't ever any other like before or since, when the dear Boss put his arm around me and told me that he loved me; but if you care, Angel, if you don't want it that way, why, I ain't remembering that anyone else ever did--not in me whole life." The Angel lifted her head and looked into the depths of Freckles' honest gray eyes, and they met hers unwaveringly; but the pain in them was pitiful.
"Do you mean," she demanded, "that you don't remember that a brazen, forward girl told you, when you hadn't asked her, that she"-- the Angel choked on it a second, but she gave a gulp and brought it out bravely--"that she loved you ?" "No!" cried Freckles.

"No! I don't remember anything of the kind!" But all the songbirds of his soul burst into melody over that one little clause: "When you hadn't asked her." "But you will," said the Angel.