He stooped his head and kissed the hands he held.
“Don’t cry, child. You mustn’t cry. You should have told me long ago, instead of waiting for my blundering brain to understand. It’s all right. When I stood on the club house stairs last night and looked at you and Archibald among your neighbors—you so proud of him and he so proud of you, and the neighbors so proud of both of you—I realized how absolutely right it was. It isn’t easy to give you up—but it would be harder to have you and not make you happy—and I’m not going to drop out of your life. We’ve been friends too long for that. Don’t worry over having hurt me. I’m not going to be miserable. I’ve rather a notion to try my hand at neighboring. Peggy’s flatteringly sure I’d do well at it, if I could get a good running start. Look happy, dear. I think you are going to be very happy—but there’s one thing I want from Archibald and you. I want a share in Pegeen.”
She smiled at him through her tears.
“Daddy always told me you were the finest gentleman in the world,” she said, “and I think he was right.”
He went away after that, leaving her to the happiness she was too tender-hearted to show him, and he said good-by cheerfully, unemotionally; but he went down the road, with white lips and unseeing eyes, and, when he appeared at the door of the shack, Mrs. Benderby, who was sitting there, rose in alarm at the sight of his face.
“Mr. Archibald’s away for a walk.”
Meredith made no sign that he had heard.
“Pegeen,” he said unsteadily. “I want Pegeen.”
XV
Archibald’s walk had taken him Witch Hill way. Golden rod and wild asters were making merry along the roadside; and, in the wood’s heart, gleams of crimson and gold were glinting through the green. Summer was gone; but magic lingered; and the old enchantment worked in the man’s brain and heart. He had never followed that climbing road without the Smiling Lady at his side and his heart was sick for her, for the eyes with the sea waves in them, for the sun-kissed hair, and the smiling lips, and the singing voice, and all the warm gladness of her. He had known it would be like that; and yet he had come. There were days when wisdom did not wear the look of a virtue; and this afternoon, when Pegeen was busy with housework and even Wiggles had wandered away on important business of his own, the man who had been trying to be contented gave up trying and set out to keep tryst with memory, beside a hilltop well, where on a summer day a witch had sat, smiling and weaving spells.