"I know," thought Gay at last; "I'll row to Placid Brook and see if the big trout is still feeding in his private preserve. I'll land just where we did before and cross the meadow and spy on him from behind a bush. I wish I'd brought some tackle. I'd like to catch him and cook him for my breakfast—so I would!"
Upon this resolution, the work of rowing became very light. It was as if the force which had started her upon the excursion had had Placid Brook in mind all the time.
Having laid her course for the meadow at the mouth of Placid Brook, she kept the stern of the boat in direct line with a distant mountain-top, and so held it. The sun was now peeping over the rim of the world, and here and there morning breezes were darkening and dappling the burnished surface of the lake.
Now and then, as she neared the meadow, Gay glanced over her shoulder, once for quite a long time, resting on her oars, because she thought she saw a doe with a fawn. They turned out to be nothing more tender than a couple of granite rocks. And once again she rested on her oars and looked for a long time—not this time upon the strength of a hallucination, but of an impulse.
She followed this inconsequential act with a long sigh, and enough strokes of the oar to bring her to land.
When she stood upright on the meadow she could see the very spot from which Pritchard had cast for the big trout. And she saw (and had a curious dilating of the heart at the same moment) that that particular spot of meadow was once more occupied by a human being—or were her eyes and her breakfastless stomach playing tricks?
A young man in rusty meadow-colored clothes appeared to be kneeling with his back toward her. She advanced swiftly toward him, curious only of a great wonder and an indescribable (and possibly fatal) beating of her heart. And suddenly she knew that her man was real and no hallucination, for she perceived at her feet the stub of a Turkish cigarette, still smoking. Then she called to him:
"Halloo, there!"
The Earl of Merrivale started as if he had been shot at, then leaped to his feet and turned toward her with a cry of joy.
"What are you doing here?" he cried.