“We may need it,” she said; “you shall not risk yourself again.”
She was entirely self-controlled and turned to me the old, clear, friendly gaze; the emotion which had shaken her a moment before had been conquered and swept aside. What was it she had been about to say? Should I ever know? Should I ever again get past the barrier of her reserve?
I watched her as she slipped my shoes over her own again and fastened them. Then I took up the hamper and started. At the edge of the little glade she paused and threw a kiss back to it.
“Good-by,” she called. “Good-by. You also have kept us safely. I shall always remember!”
I dared not look back. I felt that I was forever leaving a spot more dear and sacred than home itself. So I strode blindly on, hurling myself savagely at the underbrush, until the very fury of my exertions served to exhaust the fire which raged within.
“Am I going too fast?” I asked, pausing and turning to her, for her footsteps told me that she was close at my heels.
“No,” she said, “but you must be tiring yourself terribly, and to little useful purpose.”
“It was the brute fighting itself out,” I explained; “exhausting itself by bruising and trampling down those poor little saplings.”
“And is it quite exhausted?”
“I trust so. Do you never have an impulse to destroy things—to rend them apart and shatter them to bits?”