Ever since his university days the image of her had been growing more and more distinct. He had completely settled his mind as to her appearance and her voice. She was tall, almost too tall, he was sure of that; and out of his consciousness there had grown a sweet and vivacious young face that he knew was hers. Her hair was light-brown with gold lustres (he reveled in the gold lustres, on the proper theory that when your fancy is painting a picture you may as well go in for the whole thing and make it sumptuous), and her eyes were gray. They were very earnest, and yet they sparkled and laughed to him companionably; and sometimes he had smiled back upon her. The Undine danced before him through the lonely years, on fair nights in his walks, and came to sit by his fire on winter evenings when he stared alone at the embers.
And to-night, here in Plattville, he heard a voice he had waited for long, one that his fickle memory told him he had never heard before. But, listening, he knew better—he had heard it long ago, though when and how, he did not know, as rich and true, and ineffably tender as now. He threw a sop to his common sense. “Miss Sherwood is a little thing” (the image was so surely tall) “with a bumpy forehead and spectacles,” he said to himself, “or else a provincial young lady with big eyes to pose at you.” Then he felt the ridiculousness of looking after his common sense on a moonlight night in June; also, he knew that he lied.
The song had ceased, but the musician lingered, and the keys were touched to plaintive harmonies new to him. He had come to Plattville before “Cavalleria Rusticana” was sung at Rome, and now, entranced, he heard the “Intermezzo” for the first time. Listening to this, he feared to move lest he should wake from a summer-night's dream.
A ragged little shadow flitted down the path behind him, and from a solitary apple-tree, standing like a lonely ghost in the middle of the field, came the woo of a screech owl—twice. It was answered—twice—from a clump of elder-bushes that grew in a fence-corner fifty yards west of the pasture bars. Then the barrel of a squirrel rifle issued, lifted out of the white elder-blossoms, and lay along the fence. The music in the house across the way ceased, and Harkless saw two white dresses come out through the long parlor windows to the veranda.
“It will be cooler out here,” came the voice of the singer clearly through the quiet. “What a night!”
John vaulted the bars and started to cross the road. They saw him from the veranda, and Miss Briscoe called to him in welcome. As his tall figure stood out plainly in the bright light against the white dust, a streak of fire leaped from the elder-blossoms and there rang out the sharp report of a rifle. There were two screams from the veranda. One white figure ran into the house. The other, a little one with a gauzy wrap streaming behind, came flying out into the moonlight—straight to Harkless. There was a second report; the rifle-shot was answered by a revolver. William Todd had risen up, apparently from nowhere, and, kneeling by the pasture bars, fired at the flash of the rifle.
“Jump fer the shadder, Mr. Harkless,” he shouted; “he's in them elders,” and then: “Fer God's sake, comeback!”
Empty-handed as he was, the editor dashed for the treacherous elder-bush as fast as his long legs could carry him; but, before he had taken six strides, a hand clutched his sleeve, and a girl's voice quavered from close behind him:
“Don't run like that, Mr. Harkless; I can't keep up!” He wheeled about, and confronted a vision, a dainty little figure about five feet high, a flushed and lovely face, hair and draperies disarranged and flying. He stamped his foot with rage. “Get back in the house!” he cried.
“You mustn't go,” she panted. “It's the only way to stop you.”