She ran over to him and he took the locket from her hand and opened it. For a brief moment he gazed on the face of the little picture, then he raised it to his lips.
“Little girl,” he said simply, “I did know your mother: she was my dear sister.”
Then, with a dry sob, the man clasped her in his shaking arms. She stroked his gray hair with her hand, her soul claiming him and clinging to him, and as she looked into his face she said softly:
“I’m so glad; so very, very glad. I had so much before you came and now I have you—you.”
The Colonel attempted to speak. The tears were streaming down his cheeks. Paisley walked from the room blowing his nose on his red handkerchief. Peeler, his back to the others, whistled a tuneless dirge and looked through the window. As for the women, they were one and all behaving like foolish women must behave on such an occasion. Only Boy stood unmoved, watching, thinking, waiting. It came at last.
“All I have in the world belongs to you now, little girl,” said Hallibut gently. “I give it all to you for the sunshine you have let into my gloomy life. You will never leave me again, now I have found you, Gloss, will you?”
Then Boy went out into his dark-blue open and sought his woods again. Thank God he was strong and able to fight. It was all over now—his newly found dream of happiness. His hope was dead, buried and put away forever. But even a grave may feel the warmth of sunshine. The sunshine of a girl’s new happiness would always warm the grave Boy dug that afternoon alone in the awakening forest. It is the nature of a hurt wild thing to creep away into the dark and heal its wounds or die alone. When Boy returned that night his scar was hidden, and no one guessed that he had fought and conquered for love’s sake.
CHAPTER XXX
The Dawn of a New Day
Colonel Hallibut did not return to St. Thomas that night as had been his intention. Indeed, in his great and newly found happiness he forgot that he had cautioned Dick, his man, to come looking for him in case he did not return within a certain time.
And then the great-hearted Bushwhackers absolutely would not let him go so soon, now they knew him as he was.