But curiously these last words cost her her self-possession. Instantly she was ill at ease. The reestablishment of their old relation could only come gradually: although she had not anticipated it, the six years of separation had wrought their changes. She felt that she needed time to become adjusted to him—just as a man who has been blind needs time to become adjusted to his vision. And at once their proximity, in this lonely cabin, was oddly embarrassing.
"Where's Bill?" she asked. She turned to the door and called. "Bill, where are you?"
His voice seemed quite his own when he answered from the stillness of the night. "I'll be in in a moment—I was just getting a load of wood."
It wasn't true. He had been standing dumb and inert in the darkness, his thoughts wandering afar. But he began hastily to fill his arms with fuel. Virginia turned back to her new-found lover.
She was a little frightened by the expression on his face. His eyes were glowing, the color had risen in his cheeks, he was curiously eager and breathless. "Before he comes," he urged. "We've been apart so long——"
His hands reached out and seized hers. He drew her toward him. She didn't resist: she felt a deep self-annoyance that she didn't crave his kiss. She fought away her unwonted fear; perhaps when his lips met hers everything would be the same again, and her long-awaited happiness would be complete. He crushed her to him, and his kiss was greedy.
Yet it was cold upon her lips. She struggled from his arms, and he looked at her in startled amazement. In fact, she was amazed at herself. When she had time to think it over, alone in her bed at night, she decided that her desperate struggle had been merely an attempt to free herself from his arms before Bill came in and saw them. She only knew that she didn't want this comrade of hers, this stalwart forester, to see her in Harold's embrace. But in the second of the act she had known a blind fear, almost a repulsion, and an overwhelming desire to escape.
She turned with a radiant smile to welcome the tall form that strode in, looking neither to the right nor left, arms heaped with wood. She found, much to her surprise, that she felt more at ease after Bill came in. She asked him how he had happened to get trace of the missing man; he answered in an even, almost expressionless tone that someway puzzled her. Then she launched desperately into that old life-saver in moments of embarrassment,—a discussion of the fates and fortunes of mutual acquaintances.
"But I'm tired, Harold," she told him in an hour. "The surprise of seeing you has been—well, too much for me. I believe I'll go to my room. It's behind that curtain."
Harold rose eagerly as if something was due him in the moment of parting; Bill got up in respect to her. But her glance was impartial. A moment later she was gone.