“Poor Trafford, poor Trafford!” she said, with a faint and tender smile and a loving woman’s true insight.
“Yes, dearest, pity me!” he said. “Pity me for all my blindness has cost me!”
She laid her cheek against his head.
“I will make it up to you, Trafford,” she whispered in so low a voice that, but for the movement of her lips, he might have fancied that she had not spoken.
They remained thus for who shall say how long or short a time; not they. Then she said, very sweetly:
“I must go in now, dearest! Help me out of the hammock.”
He rose and lifted her in his arms. How light she was! It was as if he carried one of the flowers upon his bosom.
“I can walk,” she murmured. “I am quite strong again. I can walk; put me down!” But her arm did not unwind itself from his neck, and her head nestled closer on his shoulder, and he laughed as he pressed her tighter to him and carried her—as gently as if indeed she were a flower, some precious lily he had gathered on his life’s path—to the hut.
As he laid her on the bed, and bending over, kissed her not once only, and looked into her eyes, something cooking in front of the fire began to fizz. She looked beyond him at it, and laughed—the laugh of a happy child.