Was it instinct in the animal, or premeditation in his rider that turned the hunter upon the old track the first time he was taken from the stable? Certain it is that Richard Storms rode him leisurely up the long hill and by the lane which led to the dilapidated house he had visited on the day of his misfortune, but without calling at the house.
After he had pursued this course a week or more, riding slowly in full view of the porch, until he was certain that one of its inmates had seen him, he turned from the road one day, left his horse under a chestnut tree that grew in the lane, and sauntered down the weedy path toward the house.
Looking eagerly forward, he saw Judith Hart in the porch. She was standing on a small wooden bench, with both arms uplifted and bare to the shoulders. Evidently the unpruned vines had broken loose, and she was tying them up again.
As she heard the sound of hoofs the girl stooped down and looked through the vines with eager curiosity.
She jumped down from the bench as she recognized the young man, a vivid flush of color coming into her face and a sparkle of gladness in her eyes. If he had forgotten that day when the first cup of milk was given, she had not.
At first a smile parted her red lips; then a sullen cloud came over her, and she turned her back, as if about to enter the house, at which he laughed inly, and walked a little faster until a new mood came over her, and she stood shyly before him on the porch, playing with the vine leaves, a little roughly; yet, under all this affectation, she was deeply agitated.
"I have come," he said, mounting the broken steps of the porch, "for another glass of water. You look cross, and would not give me a cup of milk if I asked for it ever so humbly."
"There is water in the well, if you choose to draw it," answered the girl, turning her face defiantly upon him. "I had forgotten all about the other."
"And about me too, I dare say?"
"You! Ah, now, that I look again, you have been here before. One cannot remember forever."