They had not seen him and he slipped away, fairly shocked at what her face could be. It was a revelation to him of one side of her that he had never seen. Somehow it intoxicated him. But if he was intoxicated by a look he was sobered by a thought. Of what other simple natural joys had he deprived her and the child? Mammy Cely had told him once that the two had little dinners in the arbor, with a cloth on the table and little cakes and animal crackers that she had brought him. "Some days," she said "looks lak she is a plumb child with him. She does it so he won't furgit how to play."
He wondered uneasily afterwards if children really did forget how to play.
As he came down the leafy arch to-day in search of her, the recollection of that romp pierced him like a knife. A blind child would never play like that!
So soft were his footfalls on the thick grass that he was nearly upon her before she heard him. Then turning her head and seeing who it was, she started to rise.
"Don't get up," he said, taking the seat beside her, "I want to talk with you."
If the face that looked into his was unresponsive it was because she was trying so hard to still the tumultuous beating of her heart. It was shameful that it should throb so at sight of him! She would never let him know that she had had a thought of him in all these interminable days.
But when he spoke again, so gentle was his voice, so like her father's, that she had hard work to keep back the tears.
"Margaret, my child, did you think I had gone away and left you to bear it alone?"
The lump in her throat was like that she used to have in her youthful days. Why did he say "Margaret, my child," just as her father used to say? He might know she couldn't keep from crying then.
"I have been to New York."