His guests had finished now, and they came back presently to the big, deep settle, happy in the comfort of plenteous food, the warmth and the cosy seat, and the wild unconvention of it all. The beat of the rain did not trouble them. Secretly they were glad of any excuse for remaining by the hermit's hearth.
Their host did not appear to notice them at first, but paced a turn up and down, then seated himself in the high-backed chair and gazed into the embers. A bevy of the little squirrels crept up and scaled his knees and shoulders, but with that curious note of warning he sent them scampering. The pine knot sputtered low and he tossed it among the coals, where it renewed its blaze. For a time there was silence, with only the rain sobbing at the door. Then by and by—very, very softly, as one who muses aloud—he spoke: "I, too, have had my dreams—dreams which were ever of happiness for me—and for another; happiness that would not end, yet which was to have no more than its rare beginning.
"That was a long time ago—as many as thirty years, maybe. I have kept but a poor account of time, for what did it matter here?"
He turned a little to Constance.
"Your face and voice, young lady, bring it all back now, and stir me to speak of it again—the things of which I have spoken to no one before—not even to Robin."
"To Robin!" The words came involuntarily from Constance.
"Yes, Robin Farnham, now of the Lodge. He found his way here once, just as you did. It was in his early days on the mountains, and he came to me out of a white mist, just as you came, and I knew him for her son."
Constance started, but the words on her lips were not uttered.
"I knew him for her son," the hermit continued, "even before he told me his name, for he was her very picture, and his voice—the voice of a boy—was her voice. He brought her back to me—he made her live again—here, in this isolated spot, even as she had lived in my dreams—even as a look in your face and a tone in your voice have made her live for me again to-day."
There was something in the intensity of the man's low speech, almost more than in what he said, to make the listener hang upon his words. Frank, who had drawn near Constance, felt that she was trembling, and he laid his hand firmly over hers, where it rested on the seat beside him.