"If it is your whim, I must submit; for you have been the goddess behind the machine from the first. Continue to manage us puppets as you will."
"Only for to-day," I replied merrily; "after that I shall disclaim all power over you."
He followed me into the inn parlor, where the table was laid out; and, having taken a slight repast, was eager to be up and away once more. I had not told the landlord who my guest was, lest any hint of his advent should prematurely get abroad; but I saw the worthy man shading his eyes with his hand and peering at him, now coming to the door and now retreating. At last, as we rose from table, he burst in upon us.
"Ah, then, Master Roderick, is it yourself that's in it!" And he fell to laughing almost hysterically as he seized and wrung the outstretched hand, which Roderick, quick to respond to any touch of genuine feeling, extended. He called the man by name, and began to recall many a pleasant incident of boyhood's days. The delight of mine host of the stony visage all but drew tears from my eyes. We enjoined secrecy upon him; and then Roderick and I set off for the Dargle, where I had bidden Winifred to wait for me.
"It is a lovely spot for such a meeting," I observed to Roderick as we went.
"Lovely indeed," he answered. "My eyes have hungered for a sight of it these ten years."
We walked on in silence toward it; Roderick taking off his hat that the breeze might blow through his hair, and drinking in the beauty around us with visible gratification.
"An exile's heart never warms in the land of the stranger," Roderick declared presently. "There's something in the native air that gladdens the soul."
"Now," I said, as we entered the beautiful glen, with its atmosphere of poetry, its softened, delicate loveliness, "here it was I first met Winifred, and here she shall meet you, and you can tell your tale your own way."
I had arranged matters a little melodramatically; Winifred unconsciously added to the effect by taking her seat upon her favorite tree, and, out of the pure gladness of her heart, singing a wild song full of trills and quavers like the notes of a bird. I slipped away among the trees, and presently Roderick spoke. His voice was soft and tender: