“I’ve—tried, Joan.”
Her voice was clear and sweet as a bell when she answered. “You’ve done more than try, Wint,” she told him. “You’ve—won.”
So, without either of them knowing, or caring, how it happened, she was in his arms. And he kissed her; and her lips answered his. No cool kiss of a child, this. Months of longing and of yearning spoke through his lips, and through hers. Infinite promise of the years to come....
While they sat together on her shadowed porch thereafter, they could hear for a long time the murmuring voices of people passing on their homeward way. Some looked toward Joan’s house; but they could not see Wint and Joan.
It was as well; for it is the way of Hardiston to talk. The way of a little town....
THE END
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