But Nance pulled her hands away impatiently.
"You might. I couldn't. I tell you I got to keep away from you, Dan. Can't you see? Can't you understand? I counted on you to see the right of it. I thought you was going to help me!" And with an almost angry sob, she sat down suddenly on the leaf-strewn bench and, locking her arms across the railing, dropped her flaming face upon them.
For a long time he stood watching her, while, his face reflected the conflicting emotions that were fighting within him for mastery. Then into his eyes crept a look of dumb compassion, the same look he had once bent on a passion-tossed little girl lying on the seat of a patrol-wagon in the chill dusk of a Christmas night.
He straightened his shoulders and laid a firm hand on her bowed head.
"You must stop crying, Nance," he commanded with the stern tenderness he would have used toward Ted. "Perhaps you are right; God knows. At any rate we are going to do whatever you say in this matter. I promise to keep out of your way until you say I can come."
Nance drew a quivering breath, and smiled up at him through her tears.
"That's not enough, Dan; you got to keep away whether I say to come or not. You're stronger and better than what I am. You got to promise that whatever happens you'll make me be good."
And Dan with trembling lips and steady eyes made her the solemn promise.
Then, sitting there in the twilight, with only the dropping of a leaf to break the silence, they poured out their confidences, eager to reach a complete understanding in the brief time they had allotted themselves. In minute detail they pieced together the tangled pattern of the past; they poured out their present aims and ambitions, coming back again and again to the miracle of their new-found love. Of their personal future, they dared not speak. It was locked to them, and death alone held the key.
Darkness had closed in when the side door of the house across the yard was flung open, and a small figure came plunging toward them through the crackling leaves.