It would not be raised, but he kissed the brow, the eyelids, and said in a shaken voice:
"Were you afraid——"
Then she raised the sweet face where he saw tears and the quick rifts of color, but there were high lights of resolve in the beautiful eyes.
"Not afraid anything could rekindle the glamor of that mistake, nor any repentance on his part mend the deception. I was a child then. I did not understand the depths that go to the making of a true love. All summer I have been learning——"
Then she paused and hid her face again.
"And there is a great deal more to learn, sweetheart. We shall go on studying the delightful lesson all our lives, I trust, and never reach the bottom of the cup of joy. Daffodil, you have already roused me to a wider, higher life. A year ago I would not have been worthy of you. Yes, I was blind and self-engrossed then. We will study the sweet lesson together."
Then they paused at a fallen log, not the old place that she never cared to see again. A little stream came trickling down the high hill and there were tender bird voices as accompaniments to the delicious confession. It had grown slowly, she was so afraid of another mistake, but he would never need to doubt its truth, its duration, its comprehensiveness.
It seemed minutes only and yet held the mysterious sweetness of hours. Then she heard a voice calling.
"Why—see! It is almost night! And that is Felix's voice. Oh, what have I been doing?" and she rose in a startled manner.
"We will explain our iniquity," he said laughingly.