"Ye said ye wasn't mad with me ... thet night ... under ther tree ... but yit ye said, too ... hit war all a sort of dream ... like es ef ye warn't plum shore."
"Yes, Cal?"
"Since then ye've jest kinderly pitied me, I reckon ... an' been plum charitable.... I've got ter know.... War ye mad at me when ye pondered hit in ther daylight ... stid of ther moonshine?"
The girl's pale face flushed to a laurel-blossom pink and her voice was a ghost whisper.
"I hain't nuver been mad with ye, Cal."
"Could ye—" he halted and spoke in a tense undernote of hope that hardly dared voice itself—"could ye bend down ter me an' kiss me ... ergin?"
She could and did.
Then with her young arms under his head and her own head bowed until her lips pressed his, the dry-eyed, heart-cramping suspense of these anxious days broke in a freshet of unrestrained tears.
She had not been able to cry before, but now the tears came flooding and they brought such a balm as comes with rain to a parched and thirsting garden.
For a space the silence held save for the tempest of sobs that were not unhappy and that gradually subsided, but after a little the rapt happiness on the man's face became clouded under a thought that carried a heavy burden of anxiety and he seemed groping for words that were needed for some dreaded confession.