And Glory! Until the last few months his world had consisted of other people—people who had seemed so important—and Glory. But now—now that he could no longer follow the shining head of his little sister, he had halted. Looking back, all through the years from childhood he seemed to hear Glory, tiptoeing behind him. He had noticed her so rarely. He remembered the time when he had told her to remain seated on the garden wall, had forgotten her, had missed her and had recollected her only to find her still waiting for him, crying in the darkness. The terror seized him that to-night he might have remembered too late—might have lost her.
Something tapped against the side of his punt. He leant out—a floating oar! The stream was beginning to quicken; ahead rose the low booming of water rushing across a weir. He gazed about him. Down the shadowy river, darkly a-silver in moonlight, a black thing, like a log, bobbed in the current. As he came up with it, a figure huddled in the stern, called nervously to him, “Oh please, I’ve dropped my oars; do help me.” He maneuvered alongside. “Why, Peter! Dear Peter——!”
There was no time for talking. From bank to bank ahead of them the stream leapt palely, like the white mane of a plunging horse. Putting his arm about her, he lifted her rapidly into his punt. The empty boat hurried on into the darkness. Working his way upstream, he ran into safety in a bed of rushes.
“Glory, if I’d lost you!”
She shook her head laughing, “You couldn’t.”
He knelt beside her, clasping her hands. “But how——? What were you doing?”
“Dreaming. Just wondering. While I drifted, they slipped from the rowlocks.”
“Dreaming!” He stooped his face. “Of what—of whom?”
Her voice sank. “Must I tell?”
From his sky-window the man in the moon drew aside the curtain; he peered out knowingly.