The brook babbled at her feet and the curious droning voices of the woodland came to her. Every sense was alive; the wild seclusion of the place appealed to the turbulent passion within her, its peace and beauty enthralled her.
"Give unto me the strength of the towering forest pines," she whispered, "the humility of the woodland flowers, the steadfastness of the mist-hung hills."
A squirrel, intent upon his winter's store, was making little journeys from an acorn-filled treetop to his home at the tree's gnarled root; from the woods came the muffled drumming of a partridge. The call of a bird-note, faint in the distance, the nearby chirp of a cricket and the whispering of the wind in the treetops mingled with the low, vague sounds of the forest and blended into a symphony soft and sweet, then weird and haunting, as the falling of a leaf or the snapping of a twig broke the harmony.
The girl, with her eyes on the far-away hills, was bound by the spell of it all; yet to her finer sense there was wafted from the soft, thrilling melody and the fluttering breath of the forest a knowledge, vague, evanescent, yet so quickening and compelling that the past, the future, the present--life itself--trembled before it. A shower of leaves scattered by the provident squirrel fell at her feet; a twig snapped sharply and there was a rustling sound in the path beside her. But she did not move nor stir, and her eyes did not leave the hilltops--but she knew--she could not fail to know his presence, and when he came to her side, and stood close beside her, she shrank and shuddered, and yet her heart cried out with the exquisite pain of it.
"Margaret," he said, "Margaret, I have come over land and across seas. Have you no welcome for me? No word nor look?"
He had left the church and passed through the crooked, unkept street of the Flat and on past the old Resort out to Cedar Brook. Exhausted with his long walk, he seated himself on the ledge of rock. Margaret sank down on the soft, clinging moss beside the rock and buried her face in her hands.
"Have you no word for me, Margaret? After all this time, not one word for me?" But he did not touch her; he dared not lay his hand on her. And she made no reply nor raised her face to his until she had gained complete control of herself; then she arose and stood before him.
He had heard of her reformation; he expected to find her changed, but he was not prepared for that which had had its birth and growth since he last saw her; and in this first moment of their meeting no other characteristic seemed so patent to him. He regarded her in silence. Here was the girl that he had known, the passionate, turbulent Margaret, but blended with her, permeating her personality, guarding and protecting her, was this other self--the ideal enshrined in his heart. Whence had she obtained this unnamable quality which, unvoiced and without conscious effort, aroused the reverence in his manhood? Always before he had controlled her, dominated her, often against her will by his superior force; now her personality, her selfhood stood out before him, silent yet indomitable, subtle, intangible, yet absolute. Reverently he extended his hand to her, and his voice was deep with pleading.
"Margaret, speak to me, all unworthy though I am to hear your voice--trust me, though I did so abuse your girlish trust--forgive me, forgive me and let me prove myself to you."
She took his proffered hand and looked unfalteringly into his eyes.