Silence again. Presently he raised his head, and with something of his old cynicism bowed to her.
“You have avenged much and many,” said he. “I have often had a presentiment that my day of wrath would come.”
He lifted his hat, bowed to me without looking at me, and, drawing the tatters of his pose still further over his wounds, moved away toward the landing.
I, still in a stupor, watched him until he had disappeared. When I turned to her, she dropped her eyes. “Uncle Howard will be back this afternoon,” said she. “If I may, I'll stay at the house until he comes to take me.”
A weary, half-suppressed sigh escaped from her. I knew how she must be reading my silence, but I was still unable to speak. She went to the horse, browsing near by; she stroked his muzzle. Lingeringly she twined her fingers in his mane, as if about to spring to his back! That reminded me of a thousand and one changes in her—little changes, each a trifle in itself, yet, taken all together, making a complete transformation.
“Let me help you,” I managed to say. And I bent, and made a step of my hand.
She touched her fingers to my shoulder, set her narrow, graceful foot upon my palm. But she did not rise. I glanced up; she was gazing wistfully down at me.
“Women have to learn by experience just as do men,” said she forlornly. “Yet men will not tolerate it.”
I suppose I must suddenly have looked what I was unable to put into words—for her eyes grew very wide, and, with a cry that was a sigh and a sob, and a laugh and a caress all in one, she slid into my arms and her face was burning against mine.
“Do you remember the night at the theater,” she murmured, “when your lips almost touched my neck?—I loved you then—Black Matt—Black Matt!”